A new argument for antinatalism
This is, I believe, a new argument for antinatalism.
To procreate is to create an innocent person. They haven't done anything yet. So they're innocent.
An innocent person deserves to come to no harm. Thus any harm - any harm whatever - that this person comes to, is undeserved.
Furthermore, an innocent person positively deserves a happy life.
So, an innocent person deserves a happy, harm free life.
This world clearly does not offer such a life to anyone. We all know this.
It is wrong, then, to create an innocent person when one knows full well that one cannot give this person what they deserve: a happy, harm free life. To procreate is to create a huge injustice. It is to create a debt that you know you can't pay.
Even if you can guarantee any innocent you create an overall happy life - and note that you can't guarantee this - it would still be wrong to create such a person, for the person deserves much more than that. They don't just deserve an overall happy life. They deserve an entirely harm-free happy life.
To procreate is to create an innocent person. They haven't done anything yet. So they're innocent.
An innocent person deserves to come to no harm. Thus any harm - any harm whatever - that this person comes to, is undeserved.
Furthermore, an innocent person positively deserves a happy life.
So, an innocent person deserves a happy, harm free life.
This world clearly does not offer such a life to anyone. We all know this.
It is wrong, then, to create an innocent person when one knows full well that one cannot give this person what they deserve: a happy, harm free life. To procreate is to create a huge injustice. It is to create a debt that you know you can't pay.
Even if you can guarantee any innocent you create an overall happy life - and note that you can't guarantee this - it would still be wrong to create such a person, for the person deserves much more than that. They don't just deserve an overall happy life. They deserve an entirely harm-free happy life.
Comments (898)
Bye.
so you don't accept the doctrine of original sin, then?
Argument, not arguer.
Which premise do you dispute?
That anyone "deserves" anything.
This is circumstantial. Sure, foolish to think that could or would ever change. However not much more so than to designate your understanding of reality (your limited sensory observation and experiences in a single lifetime) or challenging of it as theoretically impossible and an absolute constant. Maybe aliens show up kill all the bad people and turn this place into a heaven on Earth. Unlikely. But not impossible. This is where the "absoluteness" in the logic profile you seem to be suggesting breaks down.
Yep. As with all antinatalist arguments @Bartricks starts with a bizarre premise with which no-one else agrees and then proceeds to show that it yields bizarre conclusions with which no-one else agrees.
Then insults everyone.
Now, Isaac, which premise is bizarre?
You think we're born guilty? You genuinely think that of these two claims: a) we are born guilty and b) we are born innocent, it is 'b' that is the bizarre one? You actually think that, do you?
Or do you think it is bizarre to think that an innocent person does not deserve to come to harm? Is that the one that you think is bizarre? You think of these two claims a) innocent people do not deserve to come to harm and b) innocent people do deserve to come to harm, it is 'a' that is the bizarre one?
Some tasks for you. First, try and become reasonable (this will be the hardest of the tasks I am setting you). Second, try and be clear. Don't make me do the work of trying to figure out what the hell you're on about. Third: engage with the argument and not the arguer.
And yes, the argument establishes that I am entitled to an entirely harm free happy life (whether I feel it or not). Address that argument. See if you can. Or - and this is what you'll actually do - make a witless comment and follow it with a crying with laughter face.
Are you arguing from a purely materialistic paradigm? The argument won't work with a Christian for example
You clearly don't know how arguments work.
Your OP isn't complicated
My lemons are moldy.
Are you going to address the argument or are we just going to exchange mindless observations?
What if life is a place to learn something in order to find the meaning of life? I mean you haven't found the meaning of life if you are arguing that life is bad
Look, which premise do you dispute? Shall we go through them? Do you think a newly born baby is guilty of something?
A baby is not guilty. But it has to go through trials like we and even animals apparently have to go through. Arguing that we shouldn't reproduce is just mindless and childish
That's the only bit that's relevant in your reply.
Now, moving on, does an innocent person deserve to come to harm?
Yes and no. He deserves respect from humans but the universe can test him
It's a conceptual truth. Innocent people do not deserve to come to harm. If they did, then they wouldn't be 'innocent'. To be innocent 'just is' not to deserve to come to harm.
So, the answer is 'no', Gregory. The question was analogous to this one: do bachelors have wives? The answer to that one is 'no' because it is a conceptual truth that bachelors lack wives.
So, either revise your earlier answer and say that babies are born guilty, or accept that babies are born innocent and thus deserve no harm whatsoever.
They don't deserve harm but rather need "harm" (trials) to grow
Do try and focus on the question. The question was whether an innocent person deserves to come to harm. And the answer is 'no'.
Hm. I like that. The idea that because a state of reality is negative it permanently defines any and all nature, prior or future, of said reality. My vehicle was in pristine condition when first acquired. Now. It could use a bit of work. Now instead of just saying the vehicle was always "in need of a bit of work", perhaps I could repair it to a once pristine condition using effort and yes, manpower. Which requires birth.
If every human being except for you disappeared right now and you were left with an endless Eden of wealth, resources, food, entertainment, anything a person could desire. Is this bad? Surely if you happened upon a woman and had a kid this would be introducing an "innocent life" to pleasure and a "care-free, safe" environment that you seem to hinge your entire argument upon. So which is it? Defeatism, nihilism, or you just believing the entire sum of reality that ever existed or could ever exist is based on your limited observation of it?
What we deserve before others is different from what we deserve before the universe. As Chesterton wrote somewhere, a healthy mind can accept a paradox while the insane have lost everything but their reason. Gn
Either
1. We deserve nothing
OR
2. We deserve the same thing
Just givin' ya some options, that's all!
:rofl: Absit iniuria Bartricks.
:lol: Good one! What's the big idea then - all this hullabaloo about having to earn it? Envy/Jealousy/Resentment at the huge dollops of luck some people have? :chin:
How did we learn to avoid the mouldy lemons?
Why was there a need to coin the word 'innocent?'
How do you know what harm is? What harms you might have no affect on me.
If you don't experience 'negatives,' how can you know what 'positives' are?
that natural persons are born innocent.
Quoting Wayfarer
More so, I object to the notion that innocence is any kind of virtue, or bestows any kind of entitlement. It is no achievement and merits no reward, not even temporary existence, for which and to which it already owes its life.
[quote=Ms. Marple]Most interesting.[/quote]
Innocence, in this world, as it is, the sooner you lose it the better! Every innocent person has a piece of paper stuck on their back that reads "kick me!" Oui, monsieur?
The dichotomy is bizarre. If I were to say that fishermen either did or did not deserve sports cars, you'd think me mad. It's obviously nonsense to claim that everyone must either deserve or not deserve anything you care to mention (where by 'deserve' you mean it's someone's duty to provide it). Once you introduce the element of a duty to provide that which is deserved then the dichotomy becomes between that for which a person benefits from another's duty to provide them, and that for which no such duty exists.
The opposite of the claim that innocents deserve non-harm (entailing a duty on others to provide such a state) is that there is no such duty on others to provide such a state, not that they actually deserve the opposite.
If one says that nurses deserve a pay rise, the opposite position is not that they deserve a pay cut, it's just that no such duty to provide a pay rise exists. They might incidentally get a pay rise. It's not a requirement of the argument "nurses don't deserve a pay rise" that the proponent actually go out of their way to avoid a pay rise happening, even incidentally. They would just be claiming that no one has duty to provide them with one.
The opposite of the position that innocents deserve protection from all harm is not that innocents ought to be harmed, it's that no such duty exists.
This phrasing as innocents "deserving harm" is ludicrous. It ignores the possible (and indeed prevalent) state where innocents neither deserve harm (no one has a duty to cause it), nor deserve non-harm (no one has a duty to provide such a state). Ie, no one has a duty to either cause harm to Innocents, nor to protect innocents from all harm.
Other moral considerations:
WHY would you bring someone into a world where they would be knowingly harmed? The problem here is that any answer you provide violates some moral intuitions of not using people.
For example, "Oh well, they NEED to be harmed because X needs to happen (for them, society, for yourself)". A false sense of what YOU think is right for someone else doesn't justify harm.. even if you think that you can do a good job mitigating collateral damage to the person you know you are going to harm. And I would say that this is a violation of using a person, for certain regards (for your agenda/mission/purposes/goals).
Don't get me wrong. I don't think the potential parents are trying to be nefarious.. I just think that usual instincts of what is wrong are misapplied to this specific case of procreation.
Procreation first leads to a not yet fully developed person. And only a fully developed person is a person in the strict and actual sense.
A not yet fully developed person does not deserve a painless paradise.
Only innocent full persons would deserve such a thing.
However, once babies become full persons, they are not innocent because of their deeds. The deeds at the moment of reaching personhood and shortly thereafter are not innocent.
As I said earlier...
Quoting Isaac
Yours is no exception. We cause harms to others to achieve what we think is right all the time. So long as we feel satisfied that the harms were the minimum necessary most people consider this quite ethically unproblematic.
If you take a hyper-individualistic, neo-liberal type approach, then maybe this isn't going to work. Maybe it does lead to antinatalism. One good reason (among many others) to discard such a morally decrepit position.
What a sadistic method for improvement.
Quoting Isaac
And another one.
That's not true. I think the innocent deserve that no harm befall them, and that others, those who exist already before the innocents, have a duty to prevent such harm. I know a few other people who think this way.
It surprises me in these discussions how little value people place on their own children, already born or potential, and how little value people place on their own ability and resources for procreation.
My child would be my flesh and blood, mine, and of course I wish to have no harm come to him, so I would do everything to prevent any such harm, including not conceiving the child at all.
The only condition under which I would have a child is if I could guarantee he would not suffer, or at least if I were sure he would become enlightened, in that lifetime.
Except when one finds oneself on the receiving end of such harm and cannot reciprocate.
Well, then I amend my proposition to "...very few people believe...". The point still stands that if the premises are heterodox, one can hardly be surprised by the novelty of the conclusion.
:roll: This reminds me, schop1, of the classical Academic Skeptics' canard "If we cannot know anything with absolute certainty, then it is wrong to claim we know anything at all" (i.e. letting the perfect be the enemy of the good / true). Yer bucket's got holes innit, son.
Interesting that you have already chosen a gender for your imagined child and suggested a singular ownership rather than joint ownership with your imagined partner in procreation.
Can you give a clear idea of exactly which harms you might be unable to protect your imagined child against? Are you ok with, accidental bumps/bruises/scratches/throwing up/nappies containing something akin to nuclear waste?
If you can't feed a child then I agree that you should not breed one until you can but would you also not have a child because it might become a drunk or a junkie or even worse, a UK tory or a US Republican later in life? What actual list of harms/learning opportunities do you want guarantees against?
Are you concerned your imagined child might become a serial killer or be the antichrist?
I wouldn't cause harm unnecessarily to others to achieve what I think is right though. I wouldn't create suffering when I didn't have to for mitigating circumstances. I think that is rather common intuition. I wouldn't do harm to someone (when there are alternatives) because it suits my interests either. At least, not if I am trying to be moral and act with integrity.
As I said earlier, often people don't apply moral intuitions to the case of procreation when otherwise they would. I am sure evolutionary pressures helped with this. Here is a good article on just this subject: https://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/14444/Antinatalism%20and%20Moral%20Particularism.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
Here is the abstract:
Quoting Isaac
Odd, since politically speaking, I am far from neo-liberal. But indeed, ethically, I do think the locus of ethics is the dignity of the individual. I don't think antinatalism needs to be based on individuals to work though. There are negative utilitarians for example. Also being individualistic, if you want to characterize it like that (which I think is just your little construction), doesn't disqualify from being moral. That itself, would have to be proven. What I think you mistake for "group" is actually a construction of a particular end goal you have in mind. And what doesn't fit that end goal you call "morally decrepit". That is just reifying your preferences to moral standard.
You are simply declaring that a procreated person is "innocent"; perhaps, perhaps not. One does not need to be a Christian (or of any religion) to recognize the possibility that a procreated person may be capable of great wrong-doing, even if they do not actually wreak havoc.
Quoting Bartricks
You are again declaring that the innocent procreated person deserves no harm. This hinges on your definition of innocence (which is a kind of religious concept, as well as a legal concept). "No harm whatsoever" is a sweeping generalization.
Quoting Bartricks
How do you (or anyone else) know what a happy life is, and why the arbitrarily defined innocent person deserves it?
Quoting Bartricks
I think you began with "It is wrong, then, to create an innocent person" and then built the support.
There is no outside agent that defines innocence, or what a person--innocent or otherwise--deserves. There is no agency that guarantees a happy life to anyone. All of which makes your new approach unsuccessful.
The world is, in fact, a fairly harsh arrangement which guarantees a certain amount of pretty rough experience (for all creatures, great and small), while at the same time allowing for a measure of delight. Antinatalism comes down to one preferring to not have children for various reasons, from personal inconvenience (children are inconvenient) to an imbalance of suffering and delight -- like the universe had ever suggested one would get a a fair share.
Logic can't solve the problem.
Why?
And you are just declaring that.
Quoting Bitter Crank
You are just declaring that.
Quoting Bitter Crank
You are just declaring that.
Quoting Bitter Crank
You are just declaring that.
Quoting Bitter Crank
You are just declaring that.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Another declaration.
See? Tedious isn't it. Now argue something.
Clarify whether you think babies are innocent? Yes or no?
It's yes, right? And that means they do not deserve to suffer.
We are born innocent.
Is that a bizarre claim? Or, you know, the reasonable default view? Well, Isaac?
An innocent person does not deserve to come to harm.
Is that a bizarre claim? Or is it, you know, a conceptual truth that only someone who didn't understand what the word 'innocent' meant would dispute?
An innocent person positively deserves a happy life. Now, is that bizarre? Do you think they deserve nothing? Don't alter the claim - don't confuse it with the claim that others owe them a happy life. That's a different claim. Address what I actually said: do you think it is bizarre to think that innocent people default deserve to be happy?
Do they deserve respect, for instance? Or, in your oh so sensible view, do innocent persons deserve nothing?
But that argument applies even if one's act will confer on the one who is created a harm free life of happiness. That is, one can be guilty of using anotehr even if one does not deprive them of anything they deserve.
So this desert-based argument is different. It supplements the consent argument, but is distinct from it.
According to this desert-based argument, innocent persons deserve more than this world can offer. They deserve to have an entirely harm-free life, for an innocent person deserves no harm at all. Clearly the world does not offer that, and thus those who procreate are doing a great wrong: they are creating an injustice. Furthermore - and I don't need this additional claim, though I think it is true - an innocent person deserves a positively happy life. And this too is not something this world can offer.
Typically those who procreate think they have done their offspring a huge favour. This is a big mistake. They have created a huge debt that they can't possibly discharge.
Quoting Bartricks
Accepting for the sake of argument that innocents do not deserve to come to harm, it does not follow that they deserve to be harm free either. They do not deserve anything; if deserving is a valid notion at all, then deserving consists in being entitled to what one has earned, and being innocents they have not earned anything.
I think you're confusing the notion of legal innocence - of not having committed a crime - with an existential question - what is the cause of the suffering and harm that all humans are susceptible to.
If your logic followed, then no harm would happen to anything that was born - including animals, who are also innocent by the same criteria. So you're arguing for more than 'anti-natalism', you're actually arguing that existence is evil. (Hey that's why Schopenhauer1 likes your post!)
[quote]Innocent = not guilty of a crime or offence.
"the prisoners were later found innocent"
Similar:
2. not responsible for or directly involved in an event yet suffering its consequences.
"an innocent bystander"
noun
1.a pure, guileless, or naive person.
2.
a person involved by chance in a situation, especially a victim of crime or war.
"they are prepared to kill or maim innocents in pursuit of a cause"
Funny you mentioned that because i think that is exactly correct.
Some of the early gnostics were antinatalist, mostly i think because they thought it evil to trap a soul or spirit in a physical prison like a flesh body.
I am not against antinatalism. From a practical POV, it would help our environmental problems a great deal if far fewer people had been born in decades past. But arguing the merits of antinatalism is a bit like arguing the merits of homosexuality. One IS a homosexual or one is not. Logic has nothing to do with it. One IS an antinatalist or one is not. I do not believe people embrace antinatalism because of compelling argument. They embrace antinatalism because of compelling experience.
The logic of antinatalism has to begin with some assertion that life is too unsatisfactory to bring more people into the world. Yes, I do think that life is unsatisfactory in many ways, which a personal judgement. "Too unsatisfactory to bear children" is a also a personal judgement call and the logic follows from there.
Shouldn't logic begin with a fact rather than a personal judgement? [I]Unpleasant Pain is a necessary part of life. Existence means painful unpleasant experiences. Not bearing children prevents more humans from painful unpleasant experiences.[/i]
What is more compelling: One's nightmare experiences in childhood and adolescence that led one to decide to not parent a child, or a logical argument?
Quoting Janus
:100:
Quoting Bitter Crank
:up:
But you just made a fact-based argument for AN, no? :D.
Though I tend towards Schopenhauerian Pessimism, this particular AN argument I made earlier doesn't need it. You simply have to agree that harming people unnecessarily and for an agenda (yours, society's, even what you the parent think is the "best" outcome for the child born), is no good/wrong/misguided.
My argument was:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Exactly! But lets not forget, they also believed that there was an escape from that, a higher truth.
But to bring someone into the world just to gain a higher truth is using/harming them unnecessarily for an/your agenda.
You can observe that being born inevitably entails suffering, without necessarily agreeing that it negates the entire process, that it would have been better never to have occured. Besides, it's too late for that. As I think Schopenhauer saw, we are 'condemned to exist', until such time as we disentangle ourselves from the blind force that keeps driving that existence.
The point of procreation is to continue the species, and to evolve. All the potential harm, or problems the child might face in this world is part of the evolutionary pressures of the selection process.
This is no difference then "The ends justifies the means".. You get to harm people because YOUR ends matter. And of course YOUR ends are sacred and MUST occur. Right?
I agree 'harming existing people unnecessarily' is wrong.
This is the naturalistic fallacy. Just because of "evolutionary pressure" doesn't mean we MUST decide to go along with that pressure (whether cultural or somehow preference).
Gee whiz, what is the outcome of procreating someone? Is it, wait, an actual person?
That is based solely on your conviction there isn't one.
I mean, the argument goes:
"Don't use people for an/your agenda". Using them here would be harming them unnecessarily. Why would you harm someone unnecessarily? For your goal/agenda of course. And I am very much assuming there is one when someone has a child. Accidents are plain old negligence, also to be avoided of course.
That is true, but in that case that genetic line or species gets eliminated. That someone or an entire species decides not to procreate indicates that it is not viable, and thus self selects for exclusion.
So? No one has an obligation to a species, but a person(s).
Quoting punos
That is simply a fact, not a moral claim.
Darwinian evolution is not an existential philosophy.
If no person was ever born, would there be a need for release (ala gnostics, Buddhists, Schopenhuarean ascetics, etc.)? So for us, for sure too late.
Yeah, it is. And THEN as much as possible, however, do not harm that (any) existing person unnecessarily. As you say, schop1, 'to be born is necessarily to be harmed (i.e. to suffer).' Harm / suffering is existential facticity, not itself morally wrong; what is, in fact, morally wrong is 'voluntarily increasing and/or neglecting unnecessary harm to an existing person'.
But the way to cut the Gordian knot is not by kvetching about it. As some wise sage said, 'the only way out of it is through it'.
I don't know @Bartricks claim actual makes sense then to your argument.. An innocent person then doesn't deserve harm, but they will be harmed. So that bypasses your poor reasoning in that quote.
But even without that, you are willingly creating the situation whereby someone WILL BE harmed. If you think that they will have a charmed life then you are empirically wrong... Though I guess you can make a broader case that induction itself is just not founded (pace Hume), but that's a different argument.
That has too much of a teleological claim for my liking. Like we have to be here to go through it. Rather, we were placed here and we have to go through it or die. Well, we die either way.
"The situation" is existence itself prior to anybody "willingly creating". 'Someone will always be harmed' because there will always be someone else and because existence [i]necessarily harms existing persons. "Not procreating" doesn't change that fact. Want to do the right thing morally? Do not unnecessarily harm any existing person. :death: :flower:
Some people feel an obligation to the species (Elon Musk for one), and some don't.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I'm not too keen on the moral angle, but the facts i think should inform one's morals.
If I intend to put someone in harms way at x time in the future, not sure why I cant take that into consideration.
Yes. In response to Bartricks response to my post.
I am supposing that unpleasant pain is a fact of life, not a personal judgement. The innocence of children (as a matter of Grace) and infants not deserving punishment is a personal judgement -- one to which I have no objection. As I said, I don't believe people (many at least) become antinatalist on the basis of logic. This being the kind of place it is, logic assumes a bigger role than it actually has in matters of belief.
One can toss logic into the air till the cows come home (at milking time, late afternoon - early evening), but chances are strong that whatever one believes, logic didn't lead one to it. Are apples better than oranges? Logic doesn't help.
Why?? Someone WILL be harmed if you do X. Dont do X.
Some are willing to, as they say, settle for less which takes forms such as less suffering than joy or both in equal amounts or even more pain than pleasure given some idiosyncratic conditions are met. How would you convince such folks? We can't, can we? If the main premise of antinatalism is rejected right from the get go, antinatalism is a lost cause.
Food for thought: Assuming, arguendo, that objectively there's more suffering than joy in life or, worse, life is suffering à la Buddhism, is hell an adequate deterrent for those of immoral bent? People don't seem to mind or are we f*cking insane?
Yes it does. The only exception is harm an innocent person freely decides to visit on themselves. Harm that an innocent has done to themselves (and done of their own free will) is harm that is neither deserved nor undeserved.
But all other harms are undeserved and, as such, the innocent person deserves not to suffer them.
No I am not. The legal notion presupposes the moral notion. If you haven't done anything of your own free will, then you do not deserve to come to harm.
There is only one way you can come to deserve to come to harm: you have to have freely done or become something.
You don't have to have done anything to deserve respect, good will, and a happy life. And you don't have to have done anything to deserve not to come to harm.
You only have to have done something in order to deserve to come to harm.
These are not legal claims. These are moral claims.
And a person who has just been created has obviously not done anything. And so they do not deserve to come to any harm. They deserve respect, good will, and happiness and no harm whatsoever.
if - if - they develop reason-responsive free will, then they may, depending on how they use it, come later to deserve harm.
But that's not what procreative acts create: they create an innocent person and an innocent person deserves no harm at all and a happy life. Which is not what this world provides. Thus, it is an injustice to create such a person.
That wasn't my argument. Focus on my argument, not any old argument that has vaguely antinatalist implications.
Quoting Bitter Crank
No it isn't. I am arguing that it is wrong to procreate because procreation creates a huge injustice: it creates a person who deserves more than this world can provide. That's not remotely like arguing the merits of homosexuality.
Quoting Bitter Crank
What total and utter nonsense. I am an antinatalist because I'm very rational and the arguments for it stack up. Just because you believe whatever the hell you want and couldn't care less what the evidence indicates if it indicates something you don't already believe, don't tar the rest of us with your brush of self-indulgence.
Now, cod psychology aside, which premise in my argument do you disagree with?
Do you think newly born babies deserve to come to harm?
Reading your arguments, such as they are, entails suffering we do not deserve.
:rofl: Let us enjoy our suffering, mon ami! Let us.
Moral judgements such as it's right or wrong are fine to have, anyone can have an opinion about it. My point is at least for me that moral imperatives are only a small part of the big picture, and that nature or evolution does not "care" about our individual moral stances. It trucks right through them. My perspective on this and many other issues are heavily rooted and contingent in that we don't actually have free will. Not that i want to discuss free will in this thread. I just try to consider things from an objective and evolutionary perspective. I don't think it will be a fruitful discussion if we have differences in that respect.
Do you think that a newly born baby deserves to come to harm?
No, not personally, but i also think it's a necessary "evil" because my moral stance you could say is that evolution is what's important not our personal feelings.
And do you agree that a newly born baby will experience some harm?
Not only is it that we can't gurantee happiness to children, it is their right, by virtue of their innocence, to be happy. Double whammy!
[quote=Ms. Marple (a childless spinster)]Most interesting.[/quote]
Quoting Bartricks
:sweat: Pathetic.
Nobody does.
I'll leave that to you to figure out. Good luck.
Yes, a truly feeble response it was!
Probably in most cases if not all to some degree. But our opinions about that are arbitrarily influenced by our specific culture. Take for example the Spartans, and how they treated their children.
Think it through.
So it seems you do think that babies do not deserve to come to harm.
So which premise do you dispute?
So you agree, do you, that we ought not to create them then? Or at least that there is a desert-based case for drawing that conclusion?
If you think procreation is moral, then you need to provide countervailing moral positives that could justify the creation of an unnecessary injustice.
You may as well ask Does anyone deserve to live? but it not really a solid question because the assumption is that people deserve or do not deserve something in the first place. It is a common habit of the virtue signalling types to claim that they have an undeserved privilege based on their sex, skin tone or perhaps their native tongue it is taking the term deserve and framing it as some technical term where it is actually just a term that can be applied in many ways given on differing situations.
To say that innocent people do not deserve to have harm caused to them only makes sense in terms of particular instances involving an innocent bystander hit by a car. It makes little to no sense to state they didnt deserve it yet innocent also crosses into the category of ignorance. Ignorance is not something that can excuse people on one side or another.
In some cultures it may be deemed a threat to life if you wave at someone yet if you walked into the village of people with this cultural signal of threatening death on someone by waving to say hello they are innocent if they attack you and you are innocent by being attacked. If both parties are innocent it does not necessarily mean there is no harm caused.
That is why I asked why you think innocent people do not deserve harm. Generally speaking we all understand what you meant and generally speaking myself and others have tried to point out why your claim is not fully justified because it is parcelling up innocent as having a concrete meaning that you insist others adhere to. Hopefully you can see why this is not necessarily the case although in society today it is generally something many people will believe without bothering to question it just like antinatalists insist what they are saying is something that questions common assumptions.
:rofl: Absit iniuria Janus
So you upped the ante as it were. Not just suffering but, alack, undeserved suffering! Could we add another layer to this delicious antinatalist cake, please, pretty please?
I would not agree to not create them just because they might suffer at some point or other like everyone else does. I have suffered but not so much that i regret living or being born. Other people may have a different experience and opinion about their lives, they may hate their lives and feel it pointless. I would at least want to be given the choice, even if it takes being born first. What i'm saying here is that i can not presume to know what the child's own morality will be in relation to being born. He may or may not want it but i don't and can't know. It would feel unfair to deny him or her the choice.
One thing that can change or vary my conclusion is the present level of potential suffering in the present environment and my assessment of that potential for the next generation. If i deem it acceptable then i would have a child, if not then i will not.
Full disclosure i don't have children and don't plan to have any.
Quoting Bartricks
"Anything" also includes nobody deserves not to come to harm either. The premise disputed was "deserving". Pay attention, barftrix. Here's some show-n-tell to help you with that ...
Innocence does not always equal innocence. There is the more metaphorical innocence of the animal, and there is the moral innocence of a person.
The innocence of a baby is like the former innocence.
Animals neither deserve to suffer nor do they not deserve to suffer. Babies, being potential persons, deserve only our respect for their right to live and their right to become a completed person.
But I agree with you, an actual and therefore really innocent person brought directly into existence would not deserve to suffer. Only in the real human case it is not easy to say, because there is development.
Regardless, your argument begs the question regarding optimism and pessimism. An absolute optimism states that to be is always better than not to be, so that it is even better to be in hell than not to be at all.
Are you saying this as an is (the way the world is, a game of luck and business deals) or does it extend to ought too (how the world should be)?
What's your opinion on meritocracy and its variations?
:up:
The OP's use of "deserves" suggest something a newborn has not earned. "Merit" has nothing to do with it. In this context, for clarity's sake, I differentiate "deserving" from earning nobody "deserves" a priori (by definition), rather everyone either earns or does not earn (re: agency ~ responsibility). As I (and others) have already pointed out to Barftrix the Incorrigible, nobody no baby (A) deserves to be harmed or (B) deserves not to be harmed; thus, the antinatalist argument in the OP falls apart almost immediately because the notion "deserves" renders its premise incoherent.
@schopenhauer1 @Bartricks ... :yawn:
There are things that can exist but dont and things that can never exist. Cmon you know this (I hope).
That's not the claim. They don't deserve to suffer. They will though. So it's wrong to create a situation like that - voluntarily to create a situation in which someone will receive something they do not deserve.
What justification do you have for doing that? That it was done to you? So, if you were raped, you can justify raping someone? Clearly that doesn't work.
That you're giving people a choice? No you're not. What choice? You will have created a person who does not deserve to come to harm and they will come to harm. They didn't choose any of that.
So what you're saying makes no sense. Procreating creates an innocent person. And an innocent person deserves a harm-free happy life. That's not something you can give them. So you've done wrong - a great wrong - if you create that person.
Yes it does.
Quoting spirit-salamander
Animals are innocent too. But why bring animals into the equation? Regardless of the status of animals, my argument is that those whom humans create by their procreative acts are innocent. And that's true. Or at least, it is what we are obliged to believe. There is a presumption of innocence: a person is innocent until we have evidence to the contrary.
Quoting spirit-salamander
It's not question begging. A question begging argument is an argument that has a premise that asserts the conclusion. My argument does not do that.
Premise 1: if a person deserves no harm yet will come to harm, that is an injustice
Premise 2: procreative acts create a person who deserves no harm, but will come to harm
Conclusion: Procreative acts create an injustice
Premise 3: Other things being equal, one ought not perform acts that create injustices
Conclusion: Other things being equal, one ought not perform procreative acts
That's not question begging. Note, to challenge my argument the 'optimist' would need to argue that it is reasonable to believe that the life a procreative act creates will contain no harm whatsoever. And that's absurd, of course.
If all As do not deserve to come to harm, and all Bs are As, then all Bs do not deserve to come to harm.
Now imagine an emoticon that whose tongue is forced beneath its lower lip and that is making a 'durrr' sound.
What are you going to do next - deny anything exists? Bartricks has made an argument - but his argument doesn't work because nothing exists. There. Pow!
It just seems to me that if everyone did what you are suggesting then humanity will go extinct in short order. Anyone can commit suicide if they don't like their situation, it should be up to the individual.
Do you think anyone deserves to live? Do you think you deserve to live? Do you regret being born?
Yes. If people decide not to procreate, then the species will go extinct. Do you think people do not have the right to make that decision? If every woman in the world decided they did not want to procreate, are you in favour of raping some of them? No, right? Why? Becasue that would be unjust. See? It's more important to respect others and not to create injustices than it is to continue the species.
Plus, we're a terrible presence on the planet. It's only humans who think humans are great. And dogs, perhaps, but they're idiots.
Quoting punos
Yes. Innocent people deserve happy harm-free lives. Are you not listening? So innocent people do not deserve to die. They will die, of course. But they do not deserve to die. They deserve a happy harm free life, like I said. That's why one should not create them! They'll come to harm and die. They won't get the lives they deserve. They deserve happy harm free lives.
Quoting punos
No. What's that got to do with anything? Imagine I am the product of rape. Well, I don't regret being here. Does that mean it was ok for the man to rape my mother? No, obviously not. That one does not regret a situation is not evidence that the act that created it was moral.
Have you considered the fact that about half or 50% of pregnancies are accidental? No one is making any decision to have children in those cases. What should be done about that?
Muchas gracias señor for the clarification! Clear and to the point. By the way is innocence deserving of anything but pain/anguish/suffering? The naïve aka the innocent are easy prey, to be dispatched at the earliest, as brutally as possible! :snicker:
:roll:
I disagree.
The anti-natalist problem is very simple: what gives one the right to decide for another that they should experience life?
Until someone can give me a satisfactory answer to that question, I have no choice but to "be an anti-natalist".
Here is an alternative: instead of trying to keep people from procreating because of occasional suffering, or potential harm, would it not be better to try to make the world a better place with less suffering, and less potential for harm?
It seems to me that it would be a better moral alternative than to just preempt actual procreation which in my view at least morally violates the biological imperative of the species. It's something i personally care about, and i'm sure i'm not the only one. It appears to me that it's a morally and intellectually immature stance born from ignorance of the big picture of our existence and disregard for other wills or potential other wills apart from your own.
I think it's fine if you don't want kids (i don't), don't have them (i'm not), you've made your assessment of the situation and you have that right. As long as people are not forced to not have kids, they can choose what they want according to their own moral understanding and stance.
Suffering is usually a product of human ignorance and folly (not always); that's what you should focus on in my opinion, not if other people should have kids or not. Try to be better to make a better world, do things that will alleviate suffering while not violating the will of the unborn. That's a right you don't have. Your morality is your opinion, there is no standard that is universally applicable.
You must understand that morality is simply a human social construct anyway, it is not a law of the universe. Is there such a thing as morality outside the human sphere of existence?
What do you think of my last reply, about accidental births?
Yes. It's like trashing your car because of a flat tire.
DNA.
It's nothing like that.
Firstly, it is not your car. It's someone else's.
Secondly, "a flat tire" represents an objective problem with an easy solution, whereas the problems and suffering that people experience, indeed the worst kinds, are often neither objective nor easily solvable.
Hamlet: To be or not to be. No one has to live. The idea the world is supposed to make you happy is the problem.
If your argument is that "if you don't like it, just commit suicide", you'll excuse me if I don't find that very compelling.
And if your position is that life isn't supposed to make you happy, then it begs the question why one feels the need to put more people into existence in the first place.
Why? Your position is more extreme.
No one has to live. You don't like the planet, leave. Seriously.
What is extreme about it?
I can see you may not find it very usual, but to err on the side of caution is hardly extreme.
Aren't you advocating that people should not procreate? Did I miss your point?
:snicker: What explains the existence of stupid in the gene pool? According to many logic books, idiocy is a death sentence or worse. Yet here a moron, there a moron, everywhere a moron, moron, moron! :snicker:
By the way, I'm as stupid as stupid gets! :groan:
Quoting Jackson
Is that really all you have in favor of your argument?
I wonder what would happen if we apply such a standard for morality more widely: as long as people don't violently extract themselves from a situation by suicide, whatever I did to them must be ok.
Apart from approximately 50% of accidental unplanned births, you should also consider the possibility that we don't have much choice in reproducing. Nature has shaped our bodies and our minds to procreate, or we wouldn't even be here talking. Even when we think we have decided to procreate, it's most probably due to natural physical and psychological drives that make it happen anyway. Nature is ready to eliminate you from the game if you really don't want to play, or not fit to play (physically or psychologically). You're "free" to choose your individual path, others are willing to go through the pain of evolution, others are not. I'm no snowflake.
Yes.
I am afraid, then, I do not know what you are arguing for.
If one doesn't believe people have agency, then there's little point in arguing morality.
Quoting punos
Individuals don't go through evolution. In fact, they don't even have a stake in it!
Doing things for the sake of evolution is absurd.
No wonder then that when people do things on the basis of absurd motivations nothing good and indeed much suffering comes of it.
Neither do I.
Those are your argument's logical implications.
I didn't find them very compelling either.
Ok.
Individuals are the products of evolution, and the producers of evolution (within their line). A persons level of consciousness can be estimated by what kind of things they can care or have concern for, in other words what kind of things can stress you out. Some people only care about what they will eat next (biological), other people are concerned about other people too (social), and then other people have a bigger scope of concern like species or planetary concerns, up to cosmic concerns. The bigger your scope of concern the bigger more expanded your consciousness is. If there is some differential between two people on this then absurd becomes a relative term. I personally have an active concern for the state of human evolution, my vision goes beyond the bubble of the self. I accept that you see it differently.. ultimately it's not your fault.
The purpose of the universe is not to make humans happy. Many people do not like that.
Expanding one's scope to some abstract thing one holds no influence over, has little understanding of and will never get to see the results of seems like a major cop-out.
If one wants to expand their bubble beyond the self, something which I can only encourage, then I would suggest to focus on things one does have influence over, and will see the results of, not in the least part because one will get to take responsibility for their successes and failures.
Welcome to the Philosophy Forum, by the way.
I never said that.
I said it. Why the text has my name on it.
Sorry, misread i guess.. may have been distracted doing a couple other things. I recant.
The individual without really knowing is influencing evolution like i succinctly explained in the last reply. The matter of not experiencing the fruits is a selfish position i prefer to not have. I don't have anything against selfishness, it's just another style of living. If it doesn't work evolution will get rid of it, if it does, it will enhance it, or perhaps reach some sort of homeostatic equilibrium.
Quoting Tzeentch
What is morality if not abstract? What i'm saying is much less abstract than what you are saying. What happens in those levels is obviously not a concern for you. It's not necessary for you to be concerned about anything actually.
Quoting Tzeentch
I agree, but i would take it a bit further by including that what i do now in my circle of influence, will have a ripple effect into the future that can affect my and everyone else's future generations. If i chop down all the trees in the forests or pollute the air and water today, then tomorrow my children will suffer for what i did. I wont see them suffering but i'll definitely have a great time while i'm here. Is it morally wrong to steal? Is it stealing from future generations if you take everything for yourself now?
Quoting Tzeentch
Thank you for having me. :smile:
No we don't know this. At all.
Case study.
Someone gets born and no harm at all comes into his life till the age of 14 let's say. He is grateful for life, enjoying it the most, his parents excellent people etc etc.
All he does is just playing and enjoying life the most. Even thinking "Damn life is wonderful. I own so much to my parents who allow me to have that life experience and what life looks like". Well while thinking all these riding his bike...BAM! Car Accident. End of story. Dead immediately without even releasing what happened! Rip.
So in that case what kind of harm occurred to that 14 year old person? Is this a rare case throughout human history? Don't think so at all. But even if it is rare indeed, that still doesn't change anything at all to the point.
So are these cases "allowed" to procreate according to you Antinatalists?
Yes we do. So, you're seriously claiming that it's reasonable to believe that a person here will lead an entirely harm-free life? That's insane. Note too that death is a harm, so your example is terrible. First, it is grotesquely implausible to suppose that someone will live without suffering any harm whatsoever until 14. It's metaphysically possible, but not a remotely reasonable thing to beleive. It's metaphysically possible, for instance, that I will win every lottery that draws tonight. But it's not at all reasonable to believe it. Only a total idiot would take such a possibility seriously. It's possible that if you take a loaded gun and fire it at a baby that it'll jam. But it's not remotely reasonable to assume that will happen.
And then there's death, which you seem to think doesn't constitute a harm even though it is probably the biggest harm of all. Innocent people deserve to die, do they?
You have failed.
What's that got to do with my argument? Which premise are you trying to dispute with it?
Note, there's a general point about when a person is morally responsible for their action - do they have to know that what they are doing is wrong, etc? But that applies to any immoral act whatsoever.
That most parents procreated without directly intending to just shows that most parents are incredibly dumb and culpably reckless irresponsible self-indulgent people. How wonderful that those are the ones who create more of themselves.
When someone outlines a deductively valid argument for an interesting conclusion, what you need to do is address the premises, not just say general stuff that may or may not be relevant.
So, say which premise you are disputing and then explain how what you're saying raises a reasonable doubt about the premise in question.
You misuse/abuse the term innocent. To state that innocents do not deserve harm (any harm) is not an argument and it also lacks any depth of meaning.
People do not deserve to live either. So what? See how I use the term deserve there?
If you think that the claim is incorrect, say and provide evidence that it is. That is, provide an example of a person who is beyond dispute innocent, yet deserves to come to harm. Good luck.
You're confusing legal innocence with the natural condition of humans. The natural condition is such the beings - not only human beings - can be subject to harms, such as illness, accident, predation, and so on. There have been countless persons killed or injured through accident or predation or disease throughout history. But that is not a form of punishment, so the question of whether such misadventures are 'deserved' or not is an empty one. Harm is not necessarily a matter of retribution or punishment for wrong-doing, it's something that can happen for a variety of reasons.
Your argument really is more like, why should anyone be born in the first place, given that life often sucks.
No I'm not. I'm talking about MORAL desert. Christ. Do pay attention.
Quoting Wayfarer
Er, what? No it isn't. Read. The. OP.
So people can't get past the word "deserve" because it sounds like something to do with retribution. In other words, in this conception, deserving or not deserving requires a past action. Since a newborn doesn't have full control of their actions, there is no rewards or punishments to be deserved or not deserved. Rather, you can restate it without the retribution aspect (which seems to imply someone who can make decisions deserving or undeserving of punishment or rewards), you can simply say that new people born are harmed unnecessarily. One can prevent needless harm to that individual if one refrains from procreation. I'm open to the deserts argument though.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It sounds like something to do with agency. Or with justice.
See my amendment to the argument above.
One does not have to do anything to deserve things. A person who has done nothing deserves respect, good will, happiness and so on.
But in order to deserve to come to harm, one needs to do things (and one needs free will).
And in order to void one's deservingness of respect, good will, happiness one also needs to do things.
There are some who, for no good reason, deny that anyone can ever deserve to come to harm. This will not affect my argument, however. For if no-one deserves to come to harm, then all harm is undeserved, And thus an innocent person will not deserve to come to harm.
So, believers in retribution should agree with me, for any plausible view on when a person comes to deserve to come to harm is going to make mention of freely performed actions, and a newly created person has not performed any free actions and so does not deserve to come to any harm.
And someone who (irrationally) disbelieves in retribution should also agree with me, for if no one is ever deserving of harm, then newly created persons do not deserve to come to harm.
To object to my claim that people are born innocent and thus do not deserve to come to any harm at all, the objector would need to argue that we are not created by procreative acts, but pre-exist and, furthermore, have previously done evil things of our own free will, such that we are born deserving to come to harm.
But that view is one few would defend and furthermore it would still not really work to overcome my argument, for we seem obliged to operate on the assumption that others are innocent, even if they are not. And thus we would still be obliged to assume that those whom procreative acts create are innocent for deliberative processes.
You're not focusing on my argument but raising broader questions to do with the nature of morality.
Moral desert is a feature of morality. Any plausible analysis of morality would need to accommodate it.
Now, my own view about the nature of morality is that it is made of the attitudes of God (by which I mean an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person). But that's not a premise of my argument, is it? So you don't need to worry about my metaethical views. All you need to worry about are the premises of my argument.
Quoting Bartricks
Says who? From whom? On what basis?
Quoting Bartricks
Because your arguments rely on broader issues to do with the nature of morality. It's all about what ought to happen, what should be case, what is deserved, all of which are moral considerations.
Quoting Wayfarer
God. I just told you that. Pay attention and stop asking questions you don't care to hear the answer to.
Quoting Wayfarer
That's dumb. You'd raise the same questions no matter what moral position I was defending.
Learn to distinguish between normative claims and metaethical claims. My claim that antinatalism is true is a 'normative' claim. It is a claim about how we ought to behave. And the premises I appealed to are normative and can be assessed by whether or not they answer to what our reason tells us about these matters.
THe claim that morality is made of God's attitudes is a metaethical claim.
Now, FOCUS on the argument I made and stop trying to change the subject.
Look at the premises of my argument. DO any of them mention God? No. So you don't need to either.
Very cunning. If I don't agree with you, then I'm culpable, I believe the innocent ought to suffer.
It is incumbent on you to make a case. You're simply cashing out the generally-accepted notion of human rights - borne of the Christian social philosophy in large part- as it if is a natural law and an obvious conclusion. But you're not offering any grounds for that. Why does anyone deserve anything? And besides, in the Christian religion, there *is* a reason why the innocent come to harm, namely, the doctrine of original sin - you may not agree with it, but it is part of that framework, it provides a rationale for why humans are liable to suffer.
You said:
Quoting Bartricks
Which I paraphrased as
Quoting Wayfarer
And it is a direct paraphrase, it simply re-states the sentiment in different words.
No. I am simply asking you to acknowledge that your reason confirms that innocent people deserve good will, respect, and happiness.
And they do not deserve to come to harm either, do they?
So, my premises are rock solid. They are extremely well confirmed by reason. You can deny them. Hell, you can claim that babies deserve to suffer. But you'd just be saying things that fly in the face of what our reason says. It'd be like insisting 3 + 4 = 78. It's just silly.
So, again, do babies deserve to suffer?
Answer: no.
Will they?
Answer: yes.
Do they deserve happiness?
Answer: yes
Will they live a happy harm-free life?
Answer: no.
I did. See the OP. Quoting Wayfarer
No, you clearly don't understand what words mean. Don't try and paraphrase me. You don't have the comprehension skills necessary.
Quoting Bartricks
They are vacuous. Your op says nothing.
An innocent may fairly be said not to deserve coming to deliberate harm, and that is a moral issue for the person who deliberately harms and for society itself. It seems absurd to say that the idea that innocents do not deserve to come to harm tout court comes from God, when it is God as creator who purportedly created this world wherein innocents may indeed, due to misfortune, be harmed.
You're not taking account of the point that several have now made that innocents don't in any absolute sense deserve to be harmed or protected from all harm. Another point is that maybe we all need to experience some pain in order to grow and mature.
In any case as compassionate beings, we have a natural tendency to want to protect innocents from deliberate or even random 'bad luck' harm; we don't need to invoke the idea of deserving or not deserving to feel that.
Thinking in terms of deserving or not deserving is a category error when it is taken out of the context of what is earned and of reward and punishment.
So your argument is that we shouldn't live cause we will die? That's Antinatalist final argument? Then tell that from the beginning as to know not to take you seriously.
Quoting Bartricks
No it isn't.There are numerous cases .You find it impossible for 14 year old to have not experienced any actual harm? Make it even less then,10,6,5,2 you choose!
Except if falling from the bike and scratching your shoulder counts as "serious harm" for you. Cause sorry but that is what sounds idiot. Or even crying as a baby cause you want to eat ,maybe that counts as harm also for you then.
So we have to deprive ourselves from enjoying the life experience cause we can't be 100% happy all the time.Great.
Quoting Bartricks
All people die. What that has to do with being innocent or not? Innocent people should be immortals??So again your argument is that we shouldn't live at all cause one day we will die.So only if people were immortals we should procreate. Really solid premise. You are right.
Quoting Bartricks
Yeah sure, why not? if that makes you happy.
Anyway I have noticed other times in various threads that in general it's impossible for someone to discuss with you.
See the thread here for example. Whoever replied and disagreed with you(almost all by the way), you offended him immediately and started a fight. That says everything for the nudity of your arguments.
The problem is that there is a deeper premise on which your premise is contingent. I didn't want to bring it up if i didn't have too, but it's the issue of free will. I just don't assume that people have that freedom no matter how much they FEEL they do. If we don't see eye to eye on that issue then any discussion beyond that is pointless and fruitless. For me it's not even a question, because of the biological imperative (survival and reproduction).
If i were to ignore the free will issue however i would have to consider the extreme conclusion of what you're suggesting. Your only criteria that i can gather is that according to your personal notions of morality we should preemptively "kill" or stop babies from being born because they will suffer. Taking if further now, what should we do with the rest of the people already and still existing? I assume you would think that many or all of these people will continue to harm themselves and others. According to your morality should we kill or eliminate those people, since it may not be moral to allow human suffering to exist in any way? Should the whole planet commit mass suicide?
You don't know or see the point of existence so you project your ignorance on to the world, and with your flawed understanding make final conclusions as to who should live or not. Sounds kinda "evil" don't you think. Isn't that the real cause of human evil and suffering in the world (imposed morality)? Your solution to life is death, which is not a solution but a negation of it.
Where or how do you get your morality? Do you really know what morality is, or do you just think you know for no god reason? Do you believe in God?
We could also rightly state that mass euthanasia would prevent all human harm eventually as there would be no more humans left to suffer. It is a bit like preventing someone from being murdered by killing them.
Evil lurks in the guise of just deserts.
Not only would mass euthanasia cease all current human suffering; it would prevent all future human suffering. Makes a ton of sense if we follow the logic of anti-natalism. There'd also be no more "non-consensual births." It's just a matter of picking the most painless gas. Humanity wiped out. Problem solved.
Ugh I get Bartricks frustration and turning aggressive. The ethics is NOT based on ends justifies the means reasoning. Thats in fact quite the opposite of the argument based on not using people.
Yeah same bro. See reply to sushi.
I think this argument can be subsumed in a more general one of simply not using people. That is to say, no one deserves to be harmed for X reasons, and unnecessarily, period.
If I decide that you NEED (whether you could tell me or not.. maybe I even have a hunch you would just love it) to play this game I think is really cool, and you are harmed by it (and I full well know that there are many harms in this game, often ones I didn't even expect that you would encounter) and it wasn't necessary to force you to play it, it was wrong.
Widening the scope a bit..
If I had a set of games you can CHOOSE from, but you could not get out of this choice other than death itself, that would still be wrong.
You can see where this is going in its parallels...
The idea of choice (illusory or otherwise), does not give procreation a pass, period.
You speak just as much gibberish.
People do not deserve harm nor good. It is literally that simple. Jumping back and forth between some disembodied ethics and then back into human reality as and when suits to avoid any criticism is why people just end up laughing and leaving the discussion because the discussion cannot begin if those posing some idea cannot grasp the most simplistic criticisms throw at their half-baked ideas.
It is WAY more frustrating to see literally dozens of people voice the same criticisms and those criticisms being ignored.
I can argue better for antinatalism than both of you combined. The question is have either yourself or batricks bothered to argue against antinatalism? I doubt it.
You can say whatever you want. Not true though.
Quoting I like sushi
People don't deserve to unnecessarily be harmed..This implies not an impersonal thing, but by the action of others.....
Quoting I like sushi
This is all rhetorical gibberish actually.
Quoting I like sushi
Big words little sushi..Prove it! :D.
Anyways, you guys make the bad arguments contra antinatalism again and again.. no reason for me to participate in what I see over and over.. Of course I anticipate the usual very predictable responses.. not hard.
But anyways, sushi-bro, the logic of moral reasoning has always been on the AN side.. It is the anti-ANs that are on poor footing.. All the moral intuitions that we usually apply to other areas of life are given a blind eye because procreation is a strong preference for many people.. and it is so engrained in our cultural practices and is a natural consequence of a pleasurable activity, so seems to give the impression of some sort of permissible act.
Again, the moral reasoning is in ANs favor.. Unnecessarily harming people and using them (For an agenda/purpose) is always wrong. Procreation doesn't get a pass. You can try to make rhetorical games to discredit the arguer (ad hom), but when it comes to the actual reasoning, you can't get around it. You can give non-analogous examples, you can obfuscate.. but it's all BS tactics to try to get out of it.
I will write something arguing for antinatalism. You will probably be able to follow it but batricks will be left a gibbering wreck I expect am I being mean and causing harm by saying so? Who is the judge here? That is the underlying issue.
Anyway, until I write it have fun not having fun or have no fun having fun. Whatever just dont expect others to sit idle when people are punching themselves in the face and hitting innocent bystanders too.
:smirk:
Quoting Janus
:up:
Quoting I like sushi
:up:
Except the bolded is not an argument. It's just a statement. Therein lies the basic problem. You keep just declaring this moral rule to be the case, but it clearly isn't, literally everyone here is disagreeing with you about it, they clearly don't feel that way, so your assertion that it's a moral instinct is clearly false.
Even if we take a less controversial moral instinct about risking harm, conception is an exception. It's the only situation in which there is going to be a person, but isn't one yet. Because it's an exception, a unique set of circumstances, you can't just say the same rules apply to it as apply to other, categorically, different situations, you have to show that they do. But they self-evidently don't. Most people think having children is morally fine.
Not even my argument. People DO NOT deserve to be UNNECESSARILY harmed.. In other words, there's no good reason to harm that person (other than let's say AN AGENDA..aka using that person because YOU think you know what's best to happen to THEM).
As for "good" side of the equation... As some sort of purpose of the universe, no one "needs" to experience good. However, in a relative sense.. it is better to experience good than bad, as is obvious.
Quoting I like sushi
Don't know what you're getting at. Are you saying, not to unnecessarily harm people? Actually, I probably don't care what you're getting at cause it probably won't be pertinent.
What, did you go to Mean Girls school.. Everyone's coloring their hair today, so should I.. Ridiculous.
Or perhaps it's more of a Carrie situation.."They're all going to laugh at you!".
The point is it is the MISAPPLICATION to procreation of a moral intuition. Did you read the article I sent going into greater detail about this?
It is a moral intuition.. Look again at the example I gave:
Quoting schopenhauer1
The articulation of that moral intuition is to not use people for your/an agenda.. Harming someone unnecessarily is certainly doing so.
Yes, I get that that's your point. It's just completely wrong.
It clearly isn't moral intuition - people disagree with you, so it can't be intuitive, can it.
It clearly isn't misapplied. People have children all the time and virtually no one judges it to be moral problem, so the application (to this unique circumstance) is clearly faultless.
Unless you're reaching for some magical, or supernatural source of moral rules, you've got nothing to go on to judge intuition other than how people actually behave.
If you make the most basic behaviour of humans immoral, it's your judgement of moral intuition that's wrong, not humanity.
Did you read the article? Shall I quote from it?
Quoting Isaac
That's the damn problem! Misapplication.. Because "people" do things "all the time" doesn't exempt the misapplication.
Quoting Isaac
Cool, I guess I will quote extensively then since you can't be bothered to learn.
Quoting Gerald K. Harrison- Antinatalism and Moral Particularism
How are they vacuous?
It's not vacuous to say that a person who has done nothing is innocent and thus does not deserve to come to any harm. Such claims are basic.
And it is beyond a reasonable doubt that this world does not offer such a life to anyone. Thus, procreating creates an injustice. That just follows.
And we shouldn't create injustices, should we? You shouldn't create an undeserved harm, should you? And 'all' the harms that come from living here are undeserved because no one who is created is born deserving to suffer them.
There's nothing vacuous in the argument. You're just not addressing it, perhaps because its premises are beyond dispute.
THe argument is in the OP. You people seem to have all the intellectual focus of a sparrow. The argument is that people are created innocent and thus deserve no harm at all. Death is one of the many harms that a life here subjects a person to. But any and all harms are undeserved if an innocent person suffers them. Christ, this really isn't difficult.
Now, which premise do you dispute? Do you think we are not created innocent? Or do you think we are and simply do not grasp the concept of innocence and thus do not understand that an innocent person does not deserve to come to any harm? Or are you incapable of seeing what follows from what?
Quoting dimosthenis9
Life is full of harms and the risk of harm. Some are certain - such as death - and some not. But that a person will be subject to a great many harms in a lifetime is true beyond a reasonable doubt. Of course, recognizing that requires that one be reasonable, which you clearly aren't.
People like to do the old switcheroo and pretend that all harm in life is trivial harm. But only when debating against antinatalism :roll:.
My argument does not assume free will. Free will is something a person needs if they're to be able to affect what they deserve. And free will enables a person to make themselves deserve to come to harm. But the newly created have done nothing. So, if they have free will, then they do not deserve to come to harm for they have yet to do anything that could incur a desert of harm. And if they do not have free will, then they do not deserve to come to harm either. Either way they do not deserve to come to harm.
I would only be assuming free will if my argument asserted that some people deserve to come to harm. But no premise in my argument makes any such assertion.
Quoting punos
How the hell do you get that from what I argued?!? I don't think we should kill babies! That's absurd. They don't deserve to die. Christ! Have you not been following this at all? They do not deserve to die. No one innocent does. So, one does wrong in creating them....for they are going to die, aren't they? But once created, you don't kill them! That would be to make a bad situation a thousand times worse! Think. It. Through.
An analogy to show you just how appallingly you're reasoning. Let's say there's an island with dangerous lions and tigers on it. I argue that you shouldn't send an innocent child to that island, as it's incredibly dangerous there and it's inevitable that the child will eventually be eaten by a lion or tiger. You respond "Oh, so you're saying that we should feed children to lions? That if there's a child on the island, we should feed it to a lion?" Unbelievable.
Again, how on earth is any of that implied by my argument? I have said that innocent persons deserve respect, good will, the promotion of their happiness and no harm whatsoever. So, in a world full of innocent persons that's what we ought to give each other. See? What perverted reasoning gets you to the conclusion that my view is that we should kill each other?!?
And no, of course we shouldn't commit mass suicide. Again, pay attention to my claims. If we're innocent then we don't deserve to die, do we? Write that down. Bartricks claims that we do not deserve to die. Then tell me how you get from that to "therefore we ought to kill ourselves". Go on. Fill in the missing premise.
I have also emphasized that death is itself an incredible harm. So why the hell do you think it's a good idea to visit on ourselves?
We're innocent. That means we're entitled to a happy harm free life. And we're entitled - up to a point - to do what's necessary to secure it for ourselves. We deserve a lot more than we're going to get. But we deserve all the happiness we can secure for ourselves. We do not deserve to die, and thus we are entitled to do what we can to delay its occurrence.
Above not addressed by you.
It is self-evident that those who have done nothing do not deserve to come to harm. You don't challenge that claim by confirming it. You have just said that innocent people do not deserve to be harmed. That's my claim. Sheesh!
Quoting Janus
Relevance? Which premise are you trying to challenge?
Quoting Janus
What?
Because it's not relevant to my argument.
My argument's conclusion is normative. The claim that morality requires God is a metaethical claim.
Look, Hugh, try and focus on the actual argument I made.
Here's how you do that. You first assess whether the argument is valid. That is, you assess whether the conclusion follows from the premises.
Then - and only then - you move on to assess the premises. And to do that you need to focus on the actual premises of the argument, not unrelated claims.
And you assess the premises by considering whether they are self-evident to reason or follow from self-evident truths of reason.
Here's a tip: consider the negation of the premises and see if they seem self-evident to reason.
So, one of my premises is that a person who has been created is innocent. The opposite of that - the negation - is that a person who has been created is guilty. Now, that's not self-evident to reason, is it? Indeed, it's stupid.
And if a person is innocent then they do not deserve to come to harm. That's also self-evident to reason - indeed, it's a conceptual truth (that's technical for 'you don't know what you're talking about if you deny it").
The negation of that claim is that innocent people deserve to come to harm. Is that self-evident to reason or really bloody stupid? That latter, yes?
And what follows from my two premises: that people who are created don't deserve to come to any harm.
Now, don't fanny about asking unrelated questions about the nature of morality. Focus. To deny that conclusion you need to deny a premise, and neither is reasonably deniable. That doesn't mean you won't deny one. It just means that if you do, you're unreasonable.
And then there's my additional claim: that a life here will be full of harms, including the harm of death. That is, no life here can reasonably be expected to be entirely harm free.
Now, is that reasonable? Yes. Obviously.
What follows? This: that procreative acts create people who deserve to come to no harm, but who will come to harm. That is, procreative acts create an injustice.
Deal with it.
I gave you a specific example that disputes what you take for granted. It clearly does even if you like it or not. Of course it's not the only wrong premise that you use but others mentioned the fallacies in the rest of your OP.
So the thing that you take for "granted" isn't at all. No, not even all people experience "great many harms" as you keep repeating. Even death when you actually don't realize that you are dying, then you don't experience-feel any harm at all either. You are just dead in a second without even experiencing-feeling it.
But you consider death as "at least one harm that you experience in life". So since death exists, life is harmful for sure. That was your response to my example and that's the final root of all of your premises also. And since you choose that as to build your "theory" on, you start from a total false base. That's the whole point.
So since you believe that, tell that from the beginning. Why you mentioned all that bullshit about "innocent people and staff"? And you name it a " new argument" also? Pff..You just can't admit it cause it ruins your little story.
Anyway you antinatalists are an easy prey when it comes in arguments. You just make an intellectual salad of them, using and bending terms like "innocent", "deserving", "moral", "harm"" etc the way it is more convenient for you,as just to justify the actual hate you have for human nature itself.
So I leave you with your "sparrow reasoning".
Quoting Gerald K. Harrison- Antinatalism and Moral Particularism
No it doesn't. We do this all the time. Practically the whole of modern child-rearing involves this, our entire criminal justice system relies on this, all actions on shared resources (air, water, built environment) rely on this. Practically everything you do has a profound effect on the others who share your world, we do not ask their consent. In fact the number of things we do assuming consent far outweighs the number of things we do asking for it.
Quoting Gerald K. Harrison- Antinatalism and Moral Particularism
And this is clearly incorrect too. People do not see the harms of life as being significant enough to meet the threshold of "characterized by intense suffering" that would be required to initiate this 'wrong-maker'. Not all harms comes under this category, so the question is where the threshold lies. Harrison gives no argument at all as to why the threshold ought to lie with the normal harms of life.
Same old nonsense
So in moral particularism and particularism in general, you can look at context. Here, for example, are we doing something to a specific individual or on the level of government action? Child rearing is relative to weighing against worse options. Procreative decision is deciding on all X harms. Its deciding that a life with known and unknown kinds of harms that will befall a person should take place unnecessarily on someone elses behalf. Unlike child rearing, you arent mitigating a circumstance. Quite the opposite you are creating the circumstance in the first place which then needs mitigating.
As Harrison said:
Quoting Gerald K. Harrison- Antinatalism and Moral Particularism
Quoting Isaac
Normal harms? Fuck that idea. More of the same logic whereby anytime a person debates harms with an antinatalist all harms become trivial harms :roll:.
See my comment to Bartricks above.
No, animals are not innocent in the proper sense. Innocent is only the one who can become guilty. Animals cannot do that. They are beyond guilt and innocence. I brought animals into the equation because babies resemble them in terms of beyond guilt and innocence.
So, the capability to become guilty must be given in order to be innocent. If you disagree, your concept of innocence is more metaphorical, symbolic, allegorical, or just fictional.
Quoting Bartricks
Okay, you may be right about that. But as far as I know, God represents for you an ultimate axiom in all questions of morality and values. If God's existence or being is the absolute good, then any form of being, including suffering, is always better than non-being.
The term deserve can be preserved here. No one deserves to be unnecessarily harmed. To me, thats basically what this translates to. That way, you neednt get caught up in the particular term innocent if that is the only objection.
Right. So the context of child-bearing is one in which an as yet non-existent person is brought into existence. So is that one of the contexts which makes non-consent OK, or one of the contexts which doesn't? Seems you've just arbitrarily decided it's the latter.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Of course you are. There's an existing generation which will suffer from a lack of children. You're mitigating a circumstance.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Who said anything about 'trivial', the word used was 'normal'. There is a threshold of harm at which it would be morally wrong to subject another to them no matter the benefits. Most harms we consider reasonable to impose are those outweighed by benefits. Harrison just arbitrarily draws the line at 'the harms of life'. He give absolutely no argument as to why it should be there.
Is this back to square one now?
This is the basic error in @Bartricks's appalling bad argument. That we do not deserve harm is not the same as that we do deserve non-harm. I don't deserve a sports car, that doesn't be mean I do deserve people preventing me from getting a sports car. I don't deserve to stub my toe, I don't expect the world to rally round and prevent me from stubbing my toe.
There are countless situations where we neither deserve something nor do we not deserve its opposite.
For someone to deserve something means (in the context it's used here) there is a duty of moral agents to provide them it. For someone to not deserve something does not impose a similar duty on moral agents to prevent them from having it. It may be that they obtain it by chance, and no moral approbation comes along with that.
So the argument that we have a duty to avoid harm befalling innocents cannot be derived from the intuition that innocents do not deserve harm. They don't deserve harm, but they don't deserve non-harm either.
:clap: :smirk:
Quoting Isaac
:fire:
Quoting Isaac
:100:
Quoting Agent Smith
:up:
It's no good being female in this world; and men cannot be relied on.
Illness, old age, disease.
Not being able to satisfactorily answer his existential questions.
Sure.
No.
Growing up, I had existential questions that the adults refused to answer, or gave useless, or worse answers to.
Such as, "When you'll get older, you'll become numb, and then life will be much easier."
Early on, I swore I would rather not have a child at all than to give him such answers.
Science can help you with all three of those? If not you then your kids or their kids but if there are no more kids then the human adventure dies along with the suffer/learn why/ prevent the suffering process, due to the whims of spoilsport antinatalists.
Quoting baker
:lol: Yeah, I can appreciate that but you might have been the father of the one.
The one who wins for us all. The one who cures all cancers or who discovers how to increase human lifespan for 10,000 years or discovers how to terraform Mars into an Earth-like planet within 20 years or.... or..... and you could have picked its name as well!
I have no kids and at 58, it's too late to do the job justice but I do wonder if my child could have been 'one' who made things better for millions of people. One who could even have changed the depressing mind of an antinatalist.
I know, it could have also have been a wee f***wit. :roll:
To be fair, that is the part I least care about in his argument, but to be charitable, I think he is saying that the conclusions of one act doesn't normally go with the conclusions of similar situations that aren't that particular case, and therefore one would be simply following preference and not what one's moral intuition is, if X, Y, Z is normally that moral intuition. It's a call to not let moral particularism turn into merely preference-maximization.. That is my interpretation of it at least. I see his argument actually applying to moral generalism too. The examples he gives of the inconsistent application seems most important in that paper.
Quoting Isaac
But that would indeed be breaking the very normative claim that people should not be used. To create harms for someone in order to justify some outcome in mitigating harms for another person, creating possibly significant harm to one person to try to ameliorate preferences that others may have, is to me, using that person for some agenda. I don't believe creating purposefully, known (significant, inescapable, long-term) harms for others to mitigate other people's harm would fall under the kind of "mitigation" I am describing. I am talking about mitigation for the very person being harmed. Thus, schooling a child or mildly punishing for wrong behavior, is mitigating for the person being harmed to prevent future harm for that person. Once that child is of adult age, notice these same acts would be inappropriate and wrong due to issues relating to consent and autonomy of individuals.
Quoting Isaac
So here is where I think the largest difference in our values lie. I would not presume for another person what is the "right" or "normal" amount of harm that another person should be able to endure. As Harrison noted, these harms are not trivial but significant. I would add, inescapable, long in duration, and at the end of the day, whatever your intention for "normal harm", you just DON'T KNOW what a) That person would have wanted as an adult consenting person and b) There are many many harms that you cannot foresee, even in your best attempts at evaluation. I would characterize this thinking as "messianic" in that there seems to be this "mission" that "needs" to be begotten by yet more people, and that you are the judge and arbiter of people following this mission. Notice that on the other side of the equation, there is no mission. There is no person to need a mission.
Perhaps I'm not quite following. I think my rephrasing clarifies otherwise confusing terms.. That is to say, no one "deserves" to be unnecessarily harmed. That is to say, there is no circumstance where someone should be harmed unnecessarily. Harm can come as punishment perhaps, or to mitigate worse things (like schooling children), but to do it with no mitigating reasons, is "undeserved" in a sense that there was no reason for that to befall someone, if you could prevent it.
Depends on the person or the topic.
There are many things one doesn't need to experience for oneself in order to know one doesn't want to experience them and to instead take preventative action against them.
A fallacious ad populum.
Empirically not true. From eugenics to some people regretting that they had children to antinatalists, some people do judge procreation as a moral problem.
People's behavior can reflect their intution, or not. So your point is moot.
The issue at hand is, actually, who or what is the authority in these matters.
Another fallacious ad populum.
Quoting Isaac
Clearly, some people do see it that way, at least some antinatalists do.
Quoting Isaac
It's best framed as an ideological stance.
Every day, many Buddhists chant this sutta:
This is so cold.
It's understandable that you might feel this way about some stranger or their children. But to feel this way about your own (prospective) children??
This view is limited strictly to some particular Western worldviews, namely, mainstream Abrahamic religions and secularism.
The vast majority of the human population, however, believe in some kind of serial reincarnation or rebirth; a view in which it takes the will and actions of at least three entities to synchronize in order for conception to occur (namely, the prospective mother, the prospective father, and the prospective child; and in the theistic variant, the will of God). In Dharmic religions, they do not believe that a newborn child is innocent; rather, that a person has a "karmic debt", and this is why they are (re)born to begin with.
IOW, for a traditionalist Asian person, your argument would be unsound. Just pointing out the limited applicability of your argument.
Arguing one myth against another.
No.
I really don't think this is something to fear.
No, it's precisely because I know I can't be that kind of parent that I don't feel qualified to have children.
Not having a definitive solution to the problem of suffering is even worse than not being able to feed and clothe the child.
What are you on about? The 'west' is not a worldview, it's just the practice of using reason to find out what's true, as opposed to making shit up or believing something because one's ancestors believed it. And it's not geographical. And arguments don't go from being sound to unsound from region to region. I mean, you can't seriously think that if you get on a plane arguments that were sound when you took off will be unsound depending on where you land?
Now, which premise in my deductively valid argument do you dispute? Or are you a Buddhist?
That's fighting talk. So come on, boyo, arguments are appallingly bad in two ways; they can be invalid or they can have false premises. Which one is it?
It ain't invalid. So which premise do you dispute? Say. And then I'll take you outside and show you how it is.
Oh, and incidentally this:
Quoting Isaac
Is total crap. One can deserve something and no one be under any obligation to give you it. They're completely different notions. You are simply confused because often the fact a person deserves something can give rise to an obligation to provide them with it. But there's no necessary connection. To 'deserve' something is not equivalent to someone having an obligation to give it to you. Someone can deserve something and no one be under an obligation to provide it. And the reverse is true: we can be under an obligation to give someone something they do not deserve. For instance, you don't deserve my time. But I may be obliged to correct such confused thinking whenever I come across it, and thus I may be obliged to reply to your poorly thought through comments even though you do not deserve it.
Quoting Isaac
And what on earth do you mean by 'they don't deserve non-harm either'? Unpack it. What are you trying to say with those words? Do you mean that if a baby is in agony, that the suffering in question is not undeserved? There's no injustice in it, right? It's just a burning baby. Nothing to worry about. It isn't bad. It isn't an injustice. The suffering isn't undeserved. It's 'non-deserved'. Yes? What an unbelievably implausible view.
A thought experiment for you: imagine Tony has lived a perfectly decent life of his own free will. So, he doesn't deserve to suffer, yes? And now he's on fire. Presumably your view is that his suffering really is undeserved. But the baby who is also on fire - well, that baby's suffering is non-deserved. So, there's an important moral difference, in your view, between Tony's suffering and the baby's suffering such that Tony's suffering constitutes an injustice whereas the baby's does not - yes? That's absurd.
Now, again, dispute a premise.
Yes they are. To be innocent is to be a person who has not freely done anything wrong. Animals are persons - there's something it is like to be an animal, they have a mind. And they have not freely done anything wrong as they lack free will. So they're innocent. As are newly created human persons.
Quoting spirit-salamander
Why not just stick to babies? They're the less controversial case. Babies are persons and they have not freely done wrong. So they're innocent.
There is only one way in which a person can come positively to deserve harm. And that is by freely doing wrong.
Thus, newly created persons do not deserve to come to harm. And that means that any harm they come to - with one exception - is undeserved. The one exception is harm that a person freely subjects themselves to.
Procreative acts create a person who does not deserve harm, but who will come to harm. That's to create an injustice. And we are obliged not to create such situations, other things being equal.
Quoting spirit-salamander
That does not represent my view. God is not an 'axiom' - that's incoherent. God's a person. And my view that morality requires God is not a view asserted in any of the premises of my argument, so you're just changing the topic.
What normative claim? We use people all the time. It's quite normal, we're a social species and we act as a group and expect members of that group to do their bit. Without a group there's no morality at all since the entire field is about how we get along with each other for mutual benefit.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Absolutely. I think we've identified this before. But this position is a very unusual one, so we should not be surprised that it leads to unusual conclusions. Most people do have a fuzzy, but reasoned view of what harms it is justifiable to impose on others for the greater good.
Quoting schopenhauer1
There is a duty on others to supply what is deserved, yes? If I deserve a reward it means someone ought to give me a reward.
But there is no concomitant duty on others to prevent that which is not deserved. If I don't deserve an award, it just means no-one has a duty to give me one. It doesn't mean everyone has a duty to prevent me from getting one.
So if I don't deserve harm, it just means there's no duty on anyone to harm me, it doesn't mean everyone has a duty to prevent me from harm.
Ad populum arguments are not fallacious here unless you're arguing for moral absolutism. The argument presented in the OP assumes moral intuition, hence ad populum arguments are all there is. Otherwise we just have the ridiculously messianic claim that whatever@Bartricks feels is moral, is, in fact, moral.
(which is, incidentally, where this thread will end up as @Bartricks's threads always do - with the delusional claim that whatever he happens to feel is the case is, in fact, the case)
Good. That's the argument settled then.
Children deserve a good life, free from harms but no-one is under any obligation to give it them so procreation is fine.
Did science not eradicate the harm of smallpox to use a simple example.
Quoting baker
If you feel you fall short in these aspects yourself does that mean everyone does? If not then do you think it's justified that antinatalists would prevent the birth of people such as Albert Einstein as well as people like Ted Bundy?
Do you associate the antinatalist viewpoint with any measure of human cowardice?
For you, is innocence/guilt a creation of human conscience or does it have any significance outside of humans or they're like?
If lifeforms such as humans went extinct, do you think evolution/natural selection would simply continue and another lifeform like humans would emerge?
Is antinatalism a pointless viewpoint because the universe has no inherent significance/meaning without the existence of lifeforms such as humans, even antinatalist ones.
I think I understand your approach.
But, as I said, one can make a philosophically justified distinction between a potential person (Newborn) and an actual one (A toddler who can say and intuitively understand I and Thou).
And such a distinction could possibly shake your argument a bit, if not completely invalidate it. That's all I really wanted to say.
Quoting Bartricks
Changing the subject might be relevant because there might be a suspicion that your antinatalist argument made here is based on unmentioned, implicit tacit presuppositions that have to do with your model of God.
Ridiculous. Creating that situation hes talking about. If you create a mess for someone else and say that no one is obligated to get you out of that mess Dont create that situation for someone in the first place. Your other bad arguments Ill get to later.
More tripe. Moral intuitions arent equivalent to ad populism. Pro life is now the federal law in the US. Even if that was because 51% of people think it makes sense, it doesnt (though in this case its a minority that wins here). Nothing has changed because an arbitrary majority dictated it. Moral intuitions can be misapplied or wrong. It isnt bare moral intuitions that morality takes. It is then distilling out the patterns for consistency and not just arbitrary personal preference or cultural indoctrinations. Hence the bridge and difference between meta ethics and normative ethics.
This was not a proposition of mine, it was a corollary of what @Bartricks said about deserts not creating obligations in this context.
If what children deserve doesn't create an obligation to provide it, then procreation is not made immoral by that fact since no one is morally obliged to see to it that those deserts are brought about.
I suspect @Bartricks did in fact mean that an obligation is created by saying that children deserve a good life, but he's just too bilious to admit it.
As to the actual truth of the claim...
Quoting schopenhauer1
Still depends entirely on the reason for creating the mess and the extent of the mess. Creating a minor mess, without intent to harm, and for good reason is basically morally fine by most people's standards.
Again, if it's not fine for you, that's up to you, but we shouldn't be surprised that unusual conclusions arise from unusual premises.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The patterns of what?
Rational analysis of vague intuitions.
And how do we gather these vague intuitions from other people?
Look again at Harrisons implications. There are patterns in moral intuitions that are consistent but then misapplied for procreation. So its interpreting and weighing where things fit and where ones own preferences (based maybe on current cultural practices) make a blind eye to it.
How do we learn about these patterns?
Are you trying to get at the idea that what people report is simply what is morality?
I'm asking you how we come to learn of these patterns which we are to rationally assess.
Intuition is usually a vague sense thats all. This feels wrong or right. Sociopaths dont get to have cart Blanche for example.
But that's just in you. You're claiming this about other people. How do we learn of the vague intuitions of other people? Or are you saying that the intuitions of other people are irrelevant. That simply whatever you think is right is right?
Its precisely what Harrison was getting at. If a sociopath has no moral intuition then it doesnt mean its right. Thats what analysis of given situations is about..I have a vague notion harm is wrong..therefore where does that fit. Unless you are indeed a sociopath, in which case theyd have to purely learn morality from analysis and mimicry.
Well then intuitions are not misapplied. Your intuition is that we shouldn't risk unnecessary harm on others without their consent, and you are not having children as a result.
What possible grounds could you have for assuming other people share your intuitions on the matter?
I had a long response here, but I want to get back to the topic at hand.. If you want to start a metaethics thread.. let's debate it there.
Creating a mess, without intent to harm, but with knowledge that it will harm, and for no good reason for the person it is affecting because no one exists yet to need it, is not fine by most standards.. it is misapplied in this case.
It is. We consider it fine in many contexts. Having children being one. Seeing as having children is just about the most consistent human activity ever, it's ridiculous to dismiss it as a relevant context.
As we've discussed before. Intuition don't go around neatly packaged with little labels on them. We can only gather what they might be from our behaviour and feelings. If most people feel morally fine about having a baby that's very good evidence that they have s moral intuition such that it is st least fine, if not actually advised.
If you don't have such an intuition, that's fine, but to argue that others are misapplying the same intuition you have is ludicrous.
There are two possible explanations....
1. Other people have a slightly different intuition to you.
2. Almost every single human of the 10 billion or so that have ever lived have all made some mistake which you (and a couple of others) have finally spotted 400,000 years later.
You're attempting to argue that 2 is the more plausible.
Really? I would never unnecessarily harm someone to any significant degree if I could help it.
Quoting Isaac
This is the arguments vegetarians/vegans make though. We consistently do it but not necessarily because of any scrutiny to if we should. It's a consistent cultural practice and a strong personal preference.. So if we want to make a parallel case of the kind of blind eye of procreation, we can do that here, as I see it as a good candidate for the same kind of arguments.
Quoting Isaac
Some cultures think that gods are in the rocks and the trees. Ancient Romans thought that it was cool to subject people to gladiator events and torture for entertainment. It was pretty consistent in their culture. Others thought burning at the stake was good for suspicion or actual having the "wrong beliefs". So?
Quoting Isaac
Again, a lot of practices are no longer seen as good. Moral intuitions can change over time.. That is where Harrison was right about moral particularism perhaps.
The point doesn't really require a thread. It's much as above. Either your intuitions are always right (God-complex), or everyone's intuitions are always right (relativism), or some generalised sense of human intuitions as a whole are what's right. Dismissing the former two as ridiculous, we're left with the latter.
The latter requires an ad populum argument to arrive at the 'general sense'
Quoting schopenhauer1
Neither would I. We're talking about putting people in conditions in which they may come to harm. Not deliberately harming them. I do the former every time I take to the road in my car.
Quoting schopenhauer1
They are no less mistaken for exactly the same reasons.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You keep jumping to the beliefs of cultures. What we're talking about are the moral intuitions which guide those beliefs. I don't think any moral intuition guides the belief that there are Gods in rocks.
You're not presenting any alternative. If we cannot look to people's behaviours to determine their intuitions, then what? Where do we look instead? Unless you answer this question you're just building castles in the air.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Moral practices change over time. I don't see evidence that moral intuitions do.
Also, none of this addresses
Quoting Isaac
All you presented is a way in which 2 might be possible. I fully concede 2 might be possible, but so might 1. You've presented no argument as to why 2 is the more plausible.
Likewise I agree with you entirely about the flaws and pitfalls of deriving moral intuitions from behaviours - we have cultural influences, weakness of will, mistaken methodology... but you've not provided an alternative method which solves these problems.
It's not sufficient to say that because looking to cultural practices for moral intuitions is flawed you can just make up your own and claim them to be universal.
No, and yes it would require a lot more than this thread is arguing.
Ugh. No, that is not analogous. If you put a gun to someone's head to drive a car, you're getting closer. But even then, it's not really analogous but at least getting at doing it on behalf of another. Also, when you drive, it is not guaranteed that someone will be harmed. But all of life itself? Harm abounds. Presumably, you don't drive your car knowing that every time, harm will ensue. Now, we can argue how bad people estimate expected harms, and ignore the fact that there are harms no one can even anticipate.. and the (reckless?) Pollyannaish nature of making these decisions on behalf of others, but that is a different thread too.
Quoting Isaac
And I'd of course say this is incorrect.
Quoting Isaac
No the point is that culture can change what intuitions there are. So I guess I am getting even more meta.. Even so, not appropriate for this particular thread.. As Bartricks would say.. stay focused (followed by a provocative insult). I mean Kant gave a whole treatise and I'm supposed to give you a whole metaphysics of ethics in a post? C'mon.. Charitable you are not and so not biting and going off on your long march to 1000 pages on this thread.
Quoting Isaac
Huh? I was giving you examples (Ancient Roman torture and gladiators, religious persecution, etc... these are all "behaviors" if you will.. but then you reject them as cultural..but the people who did them presumably thought they were a-ok...)
Quoting Isaac
So now I give you examples and then you are positive that moral intuitions don't change. Possibly culture changes to "better" moral intuitions, but very slowly.. going forward and backwards but generally moving forward...
(Gladiators are prisoners of war or hated group X.. these people aren't "people".. religious group that has different views.. these aren't "people" in the same way as the former.. turns into.. tolerance, lessening of harm to others or unnecessarily harsh justice, empathy, diverse views without dominance, etc. the general trend is for more empathy, inclusiveness of difference, tolerance, etc...maybe includes animals, may include not causing unnecessary harm to people, period.)
Quoting Isaac
All we have is analysis based on intuitions. It would seem that in other circumstances, unnecessarily hurting others would be wrong. Here we are unnecessarily hurting others.
First, I did not say that deserts do not create obligations, I said that they're different concepts - the concept of moral desert is not equivalent to the concept of moral obligation (which is what you had asserted - you'd asserted that to deserve something is equivalent to someone being obliged to give you it; which is nonsense).
The fact a person deserves something will, standardly, give rise to an obligation to provide it. It won't necessarily do so. But it often will. That a person deserves respect is precisely why we standardly are obliged to give it. But that a rapist deserves to be raped does not mean we are obliged to rape them. So, 'sometimes' the fact a person deserves something is the basis of an obligation to provide it; sometimes it is not. 'Sometimes' doesn't mean 'always'.
Second, my argument was that it is immoral - other things being equal - to create a desert of something that cannot be provided (there are exceptions, but whether they apply to the procreation case is something that you'd need to argue). No premise of my argument asserted that if someone deserves something then we ought to give it to them. But you seem incapable of focussing on the actual argument.
I see that now what you're doing is questioning the probative value of intuitions. Good one! All knowledge of anything is based on them. So thanks - my argument is so good all you can do in response to it is question whether we know anything at all. Do you realize how incompetent that is as an argumentative strategy?
Innocence is not our creation. It's a status that someone has, not something we bestow by our attitudes. If I believe you're guilty of something, that doesn't mean you are - even if I manage to convince everyone else that you're guilty of it.
Quoting universeness
No. Antinatalism is the view that it is immoral to procreate (other things being equal).
If, by the 'meaning' of our lives, you mean their purpose, well clearly the purpose of our lives is to do what is right. By procreating then, one goes against the purpose of one's being here. If you disagree, you need to challenge my argument.
Quoting universeness
I don't know. But evolutionary forces do not have moral obligations. We do. And among them is an obligation not to procreate. Note, I have not argued that we have an obligation to stop the production of persons. I have argued that we, as individuals, are obliged not to procreate.
My question was, does innocence/guilt exist outside of the human species or our like?
Quoting Bartricks
I do challenge your argument. I asked you if the purpose of the universe is linked to the existence of humans. If antinatalism were realised it would damage that purpose, would it not?
Quoting Bartricks
Extinction is permanent so if you don't know, perhaps it is unwise to advocate for antinatalism, if it would not achieve your goal as humans would just be eventually replaced by another conscious/sentient species who face the same dilemmas as we do. Morality is a development which occurred as humans worked together more and more and lived in communities. Morality would be an issue for any lifeforms which have a similar level of consciousness to humans.
Quoting Bartricks
You make an intriguing distinction here. Are you saying that if human beings can be created by harvesting sperm and eggs and producing humans completely outside of the human body then your antinatalism, would be ok with that?
Of course it is. I'm knowingly risking harm to others. Accelerating a ton of metal at 70mph is inherently a risk to those around me. The analogy required only putting people in a position where they might come to harm, but not deliberately intending that they do.
Quoting schopenhauer1
So how likely does it have to be, and why? Is 100% a different moral imperative to 99.99999%?
We could pick others. If I play football (or any other full contact team sport), it's an absolute guarantee that someone else will be harmed at some point in my hobby. If I were a tribesman and I enlist help building the houses for the whole community, it's pretty much guaranteed that someone will come to harm as a result of this activity (it's dangerous work). If I even so much as sharpen a weapon, it's almost guaranteed that someone will one day cut themselves as a result of that sharpening. Examples abound. We live in social groups and see the welfare of the group as greater than that of any individual - or at least the non-sociopathic among us do anyway.
Quoting schopenhauer1
We cannot avoid it. You're invoking your personal moral intuition as a universal moral intuition without any support. Why is your personal feeling on the matter even likely to be shared by everyone else? Your claim (Harrison's) is that there's a misapplied moral intuition - in other words, other people - those who have children - have this same moral intuition you have about harms, but misapply it when it comes to procreation. Your claim absolutely relies on others sharing your moral intuition. But you've failed to provide any argument supporting this.
Without it all you have is "I feel x and so I don't have children" - well bully for you.
When we point to the behaviour of others as a source, you say their behaviour can't be trusted as a guide to their moral intuitions.
When we point to culture as a source, you say cultures change and moral intuitions evolve.
So the question remains - on what grounds do you claim that others share the moral intuition you have, such as to claim it's 'misapplied'?
Right. So when I said...
Quoting Isaac
...the correct response was just "yes".
Quoting Bartricks
Nope. I said...
Quoting Isaac
'Means', not 'equivalent to'. If you're going to try and quibble over semantics then you at least need to use the bloody words I used. Quibbling semantics by using words I didn't even use seems a little one-sided.
Quoting Bartricks
Well then you're lacking any evidence at all that this is indeed a moral intuition since the examples you've given all relate to obligation (such as to avoid harm to others). You've not provided any other example where we consider the creation of deserts, in this way, without the ability to provide them to be immoral.
Quoting Bartricks
I'm questioning your equating your personal intuitions with universal ones. Not the use of intuitions tout court. To claim something is immoral, you need to show that others too have the intuition you have (or that they ought to have it). You've done neither.
There is a very significant difference between recognising that all we have to go on are things 'seeming to us to be the case' and assuming, as you do here, that simply by virtue of something's seeming to you to be the case it is, in fact, the case.
1. Happiness
2. Suffering
3. Neither happiness nor suffering aka contentment
A 3 sided die, roll it; life is after all a gamble.
P(x) = Probability of x
P(getting what you want: contentment/happiness) = [math]\frac{2}{3} \approx [/math] 66%
P(suffering) = [math]\frac{1}{3} \approx [/math] = 33%
:snicker:
Yes he does seem to be moving to questioning all of ethics as a relative thing now.
This doesn't overcome my objection :roll:.
[quote="schopenhauer1;713132]Presumably, you don't drive your car knowing that every time, harm will ensue.[/quote]
Yet as you well should know, life will absolutely be guaranteed to contain some harm, and significant amounts of it.
Quoting Isaac
I've said this before but all life after birth WILL have harm. It's entailed in the processes of living a human life. Procreation is a point where you can absolutely prevent all harm. No one ever seems to pick up that point and tries to relativize all harm with a particular harm that happens once born, as if picking out a particular harm is analogous.
But even without this major difference, my objection still stands that you are not driving KNOWING that you will harm someone. Life contains KNOWN harms.. so also a major difference.
Quoting Isaac
It's not forced. Presumably the person wanted to help. If they were forced, then it was a wrong. Presumably, forcing other autonomous adults to do something (even if we think it a good deed) is not moral itself. If I think that all my friends should help me with my garden and they don't but I put measures in place to force them to help me with my garden as I think it's the right thing to do.. well, you see where this is going..
Quoting Isaac
Creating the mess so people have to work together or die doesn't prove anything other than the very point that procreation causes others to have to deal with things..
Quoting Isaac
That's just, like, your opinion man. Harrison did a good enough job describing those basic intuitions of non-harm, non-consent, and others (did you even read the whole paper or just my quote from it). Presumably, "most people" don't want to harm people unnecessarily. And none of your objections pointed to that. What you fail to see is that "unnecessarily" implies "can be avoided".
Let's say we agree that everyone is limited in what they know as to the best way to show someone how to do something. But, let us say that you know of two ways to show someone how to do something. You knew that you can show someone the "dangerous way" or the "easy way". You also knew that the "dangerous way" had no discernible benefits down the line.. If you taught someone the "dangerous way" because you simply wanted to see what the other person would do, that would be wrong. I don't see that being some highly individualistic intuition. Even if I was to present someone with danger because I felt they would like the danger, and tried to mitigate harms for them, but had no idea whether it would truly work, the very fact I knew there was a way to not present danger to them, precluded that as the better choice. Remember, there was no NEED for the danger. It was completely unnecessary to occur for that person who will be affected by the danger. That would be indeed using them for our preferences, for no reason.
You seriously still expect me to answer after the bullshit you just pulled ?
If everyone disagreeing with you is 'trolling' then this is not the place for you.
I actually didn't see that you answered him. Because I try to do the right thing, and I now know something I didn't know earlier.. I'm going to take it down. Because I am a person who tries to have integrity :wink:.. Even on an anonymous philosophy forum.
Both are true.. Cultural practices have been (generally) getting more X, Y, Z (tolerant, less harm-based, etc.), but also people's behaviors surrounding procreation are definitely something of a blind eye based on other intuitions.
Western culture is "just the practice of using reason to find out what's true"??
Shall we look at a rap video with twerking females, as example of "just the practice of using reason to find out what's true"?
Duh.
The implicit one, "People are born innocent".
This is Pharisaic. It follows logically, but it goes against the spirit of love for children.
Quoting Isaac
But other people do the same kind of thing. Epistemologically, it's not even clear it's possible to do something else. An argument can be sound only in a particular context, given particular axioms, but not outside of that; whereby the choice of context is not a given, not universal.
Then, like you said elsewhere:
Quoting Isaac
And create a million others.
I think that the argument from the prospective parent's lack of existential qualification is stronger than the one usually presented by antinatalists (about various prospective harms awaiting prospective people).
Of course, given that many people have relatively low aspirations in life, the argument from the prospective parent's lack of existential qualification is unintelligible to them. They'll simply dismiss a young person with existential concerns as mentally ill, rather than question their own scope of existential insight.
But they're not actually preventing anyone. Antinatalists are a small, powerless bunch. It's the normal people who believe that procreation is "just fine" and who abort a half of all pregnancies that are actually preventing others, literally.
Not in the existential sense, but in the worldly sense, yes.
I don't understand the question. Innocence or guilt is always someone's. And it always belongs to a person, a mind.
Quoting universeness
And I answered. Our purpose is to do what's right and avoid what's wrong. And I have argued that it is wrong to procreate. So you are simply begging the question by insisting that purpose is something else. You need to argue for that claim by refuting my argument.
Quoting universeness
Again, I addressed this point. Imagine all women decide they do not wish to procreate. Is it ok to rape them? Obviously not. Why? Because that would violate their rights, which is an injustice. So, it is more important to prevent injustices than it is to keep the species in existence.
I have argued that procreation itself creates an injustice.
Quoting universeness
Er, no. Of course not. Why would you think I was? It's wrong to lie, isn't it? Default wrong, anyway. Does that mean I have an obligation to stop you lying? Should I kill everyone in order to stop lying occurring? No, that's dumb. If it's wrong to lie, that means I ought not to lie (and you ought not to lie). It does not follow that I ought to prevent you lying or you me.
Now, it is immoral to procreate. That means you ought not procreate and I ought not procreate. It does not mean that I am obliged to stop procreation from occurring.
It's up to you to tell me what on earth you mean by 'western culture' or why it's relevant to anything I have argued.
But philosophy is the practice of using reason to find out what's true, yes? That's what I'm doing in this OP.
And then there's just making stuff up or believing something because there's a tradition of believing it. That's not philosophy. It is what it is. Now, I assume that when someone starts talking about 'other traditions of thought' or 'other cultural traditions' what they mean is "but what about those who do not use reason to figure out what's true and instead just make stuff up or insist that certain views are true because that's just what people believe in this or that neck of the woods". Well, my answer is those folk are not doing philosophy. It's like giving me your recipe for banana cake. It's not relevant to anything I have argued.
Quoting baker
That wasn't an implicit premise. It was explicit. Do you dispute it? On what basis?
Er, no. Christ. Comprehension skills: D. To deserve something does not - NOT - mean the same as 'there's an obligation to give the person it". Clear? They don't mean the same thing. If two statements have the same meaning - that is, have the same propositional content - then you can use them interchangeably. You cannot substitute talk of desert with talk of moral obligations.
Again: to deserve something is quite different from there being an obligation to provide it.
The former can give rise to the latter. That does not mean they're the same. If one thing gives rise to another thing, that doesn't mean that the first thing is the second. It looks stormy outside and so a lot of people are carrying umbrellas. That does not mean that 'it looks stormy' means ' a lot of people are carrying umbrellas', even though the fact it looks stormy is often what's responsible for people carrying umbrellas.
Quoting Isaac
You're the one who is misusing terms and then attributing the resulting views to me!!!
If two statements mean the same thing, then that means they have the same propositional content. Now, to deserve something does NOT mean the same as 'there is aduty of moral agents to provide them it". Those are quite different concepts. That is, the concept of desert is completely different to the concept of a moral obligation.
Write this out a thousand times until it sinks in: to deserve something does not mean the same as 'there is a duy of moral agents to provide it".
Again: a rapist deserves to be raped. That does not mean that we are obliged to rape the rapist.
But sometimes - sometimes - that a person deserves something can give rise to there being an obligation to provide it.
If the two meant the same thing......then there would be a 'necessary' connection. It would impossible for a person to deserve something and there be no obligation to provide it.
Yet often a person can deserve something and no one be under any obligation to provide it.
Quoting Isaac
More sloppiness. A moral intuition is a kind of mental state (it's a mental state with representative contents). I am appealing to moral intuiitions in support of my claims. But the claims are not themselves about moral intuitions.
My claim was that it is immoral - other things being equal - to create injustices. And if one has created someone who deserves something they're not going to receive, then one has created an injustice. Which of those claims do you dispute? Do not challenge the probative force of intuitions - all arguments for anything appeal to intuitions. Just try and challenge a premise. Do that by trying to come up with a counter-example to the premise in question. So, for instasnce, I have claimed that if a person has done nothing, then they do not deserve to come to harm. You challenge that premise by coming up with a case in which a person has done nothing at all yet seems to deserve to come to harm. Good luck coming up with such a case. But that's what it would take to challenge that premise. I have claimed that it is an injustice when a person who does not deserve to come to harm comes to harm. TO challenge that claim you would need to come up with a case where a person clearly does not deserve to come to harm yet comes to harm and it is no injustice (there are cases of this - I have mentioned one, namely freely self-inflicted harm....but they do not seem to undermine my case). And I have claimed that it is wrong, other things being equal, to create injustices. To challenge that claim you would need not just to provide examples where we are obliged to create injustices - for I do not deny that we are sometimes obliged to create injustices - but you would need to show that other things are not equal in the procreation case. Do one of those things.
Shall I help you? I have already provided you with one example of a case where a person does not deserve to come to harm, comes to harm, and the harm is not undeserved - freely self-inflicted harm.
That's not going to undermine my argument, however.
Here's another potential counterexample to something I have claimed: freely going beyond the call of duty. I have claimed that it is wrong, other things being equal, to create a desert of something that can't be provided. But one counterexample to that claim is the case of a person who freely goes beyond the call of duty. That person makes themselves even more deserving of good things than someone who has not gone beyond the call. Yet it is even more unlikely that they will get what they deserve than if they had not gone beyond the call. But clearly it is not wrong to go beyond the call.
See? That's how to challenge me in a sophisticated way. Now, up your game.
It's fairly straightforward...
"It seems to me that X implies Y"
"Yes, it seems that way to me to"
"It seems to me that Z implies X"
"Yes, it seems that way to me to"
(shared intuition)
"Well, then given that, is it not the case that Z implies Y?"
(argument based on shared intuition - and shared rules of thought).
Interestingly, what we have in @Bartricks threads is in the form
"It seems to me that X implies Y"
"It doesn't seem that way to me"
"Well, you're wrong because... God"
Quoting Bartricks
I suggest you buy yourself a good dictionary, it might help in conversations with other English speakers.
Or you could just refer to this excellent philosopher I fond some quotes from online where he uses 'means' in situations other than implying the two components are directly interchangeable...
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
Also...
Quoting Bartricks
"It looks stormy outside, that means a lot of people will be carrying umbrellas" is a perfectly normal sentence in English. See meaning (5) above "Friction means heat".
Your adolescent God-complex doesn't wash here. You'll have a lot more productive conversations if you give it up.
Quoting Bartricks
The second.
Quoting Bartricks
We unproblematically have children. Most people consider it perfectly moral, yet most people consider creating an injustice immoral, and most people think children deserve happiness, therefore most people do not consider it creating an injustice to create someone who deserves something they're not going to receive. It clearly is not a shared moral intuition.
Quoting Bartricks
Procreation. I have about 10 billion examples.
As I said earlier. If your moral system concludes that almost every human being ever is morally wrong and that the entire human race cannot morally continue to exist, it is far more likely that your moral system is wrong than it is the entire human race for the last 400,000 years is wrong. It takes a monumental, messianic ego to assume you're right in the face of every other human being ever. Hence why your case is so fascinating.
Zinloos geweld (senseless violence).
Good acts are deserved & undeserved and so are foul deeds. The apotheosis of goodness is when it isn't due (trading favors isn't a bad thing, but quid pro quo isn't exactly the best model of benevolence).
So, even if babies weren't innocent, their happiness/well-being is paramount. A fortiori, Bartricks is bang on target.
Scientists have certainly been involved in biological and chemical warfare but it would be rather dumb to create a virus that can kill as many of your own people as it will the enemy, unless you have a cure. I think what you are suggesting belongs more to unlikely conspiracy theories than reality. Also, people should be a little more accurate in their use of quantities. There is an old 'jokey' response; "for the millionth time! Stop exaggerating!."
Quoting baker
Well, you are engaging in a great deal of generalisation in such typing. I am capable of such myself but I think it's important to recognise when you are using such a big cumbersome brush to try to paint details.
Quoting baker
Ok, so from this I would assume you are not an antinatalist. Yes, abortion will 'reduce the chances' of another Einstein or Ted Bundy. I believe however that women must be masters of their own body. The state cannot FORCE a women to maintain a pregnancy.
I think we probably have quite a bit of common ground on the issue of antinatalism.
I consider it a fringe, extreme and valueless viewpoint but I also think you should not bring children into this overpopulated world unless you can tick a large list of requirements first.
This answer is quite clear. It implies that you agree that innocence/guilt is a concept created from the human condition. I think good/evil is the same. The concept of innocence is very important to the points you make in the OP.
You are using 'violation' of the common concept of innocence to invoke antinatalism as the only solution.
I am suggesting to you that I think this is an unwise invocation when as a species/lifeform, we don't yet understand human consciousness, we don't know why we are or what our main purpose is.
It seems to me that it is to ask questions and we are 'little packets of existence,' whose origin seems to be happenstance. The purpose of our manifestation seems to be OF THE universe to figure out why and what it is. It's almost as if some of the component parts are trying to figure out what the whole is. You suggest the 'suffering' aspect of the human experience negates that effort based on your claim that the human concept of innocence is violated. I think this is 'too small' a concern compared to the universal goal of seeking answers to the big 'how' and 'why' questions.
If antinatalism was realised it would achieve no more than setting the evolutionary clock back to a time without sentient/conscious/intelligent humans who ask questions like 'why does the universe exist,' and what is its purpose. Evolution would simply recreate sentient/conscious/intelligent species which could ask such questions and it will be ever thus! Does your own 'sense of the human condition,' and your own understanding of 'why we ask questions,' dispute this?
Quoting Bartricks
I can only apply my own ability to interpret the words you type. This has two weaknesses, my ability to correctly interpret your intended meaning and your ability to impart your meaning with sufficient clarity, in the word combinations you choose to type. Neither possibility requires subterfuge or 'lying' by either party. We need to be tolerant of our misinterpretations of each other and simply request further clarification until understanding is gained or frustration results in us, politely and respectfully, discontinuing our exchange.
Your accusation that I am lying is offensive. I can trade blows with you at that level if that is one of the ways you get your 'jollies,' I am well practiced at doing so. I am enjoying my exchange with you so far in this thread. I would rather try to maintain that but if you prefer another slanging match with me to add to ones you have had with others then I can oblige you.
Moral intuitionism is not the same as the ad populum fallacy.
You would have to distill what is the moral facts of the mater and what are non-moral factors.
The moral intuition might be that inflicting unnecessary harm is generally wrong to do to someone else.
However, the application of such intuitions might be disagreed with.. I think Harrison's point remains that the application of procreation is a blindspot to this kind of moral intuition.
Keep to the text.
Quoting baker
"The harm" is the center of your phrase, and to this one I replied. As in, "Science created a million other harms." For example, all the polution we're facing nowadays is the result of science.
Again, keep to the text:
Quoting baker
The dismissal of those with existential concerns is done by those who have relatively low aspirations in life.
Women cannot even be the masters of the noun for them!
The state should FORCE people to use the noun "woman" correctly, correctly distinguishing between the singular and the plural form.
It adds insult to injury not to use the noun "woman" correctly in a discussion of a topic that is of great importance to women.
I think my list is longer than yours.
It's relevant because your argument is deductively valid only in a specific context, ie. that of Western culture (where people don't believe in (serial) reincarnation or rebirth).
That's an ongoing debate.
You're part of the tradition that believes there is no (serial) reincarnation or rebirth.
You say you're the one using reason. The Asians say they're the ones using reason.
Hm.
If you're so sure of yourself, then why start this thread?
No, you didn't formulate it like that.
On the basis that it's culturally specific.
People are typically epistemic autoritarians. From the lowest plebeian to a philosopher with several advanced degrees, epistemic authoritarianism: "Things are the way I see them, and everyone who thinks differently is wrong, bad, evil, mentally deranged, or lying."
Although the "the way I see it" element is questionable. People generally don't seem to think they are looking at things from their perspective, their viewpoint, but are, instead, "seeing things as they really are".
The OP might be a bit more in-your-face, but he's no different than most posters here when it comes to being dead sure of one's position.
Make that potentially about 20 billion examples.
You're ignoring that sexuality and procreation have been by far the most regulated social activities in human society throughout history.
If procreation would truly be "just fine" and as moral as you suggest, then people wouldn't widely practice contraception, abortion, infanticide, wouldn't regulate the status of unwed mothers and their children, there would be no eugenics, no notion of incest, no sex education. Instead, people would just go forth, be fruitful, and multiply, at whatever age, socioeconomic status, with or without consent.
You underestimate how complex human procreation is, and also underestimate how complex people's views of procreation are (contianing mutually exclusive premises).
Oh, come on, that's not empirically true.
Secondly, it's not the OP's argument that is strange. The OP is actually simply taking a few premises that are non-controversial in our society and follows them through to their logical conclusions.
The problem isn't with the OP, it's with the Western point of view.
I do, but I will respond to what you type.
Quoting baker
Clarity is your responsibility also. If your response is based on the emphasis of certain words I have typed then make that clear and perhaps you will receive a return closer to your area of concern.
Quoting baker
Based on what evidence? The technologies created by scientists are open to abuse by the nefarious and by self-interest or just incompetent decisions made by those in power. Profiteers are only interested in profit. Your argument is similar to those who blame fictitious gods for the actions of theists.
I am not suggesting all science and all scientists are morally pure but I would certainly not make the sweeping generalisations you make.
Quoting baker
Again, try to improve your clarity.
Quoting baker
Do you consider such people a large majority of the global population?
We live in very imbalanced rich/poor conditions. It is harsh to judge the aspiration level of any individual who has had poverty imposed upon them since birth and very limited or no opportunity to escape it.
Quoting baker
I think your point here is not an important one but I will leave it to any female posters to declare their support of your viewpoint. I assume you are not female.
No woman I know has ever raised any concern about such. Singular or plural THEY should be masters of their own body! I suggest you temper your excitement about an e in one of my sentences, that should have been an a. Btw, the word pollution has two l's not one, as you typed in one of your sentences. Are we exchanging ideas here or do you wish to continue making petty valueless points about spelling?
Quoting baker
I am sure it is but I have always favoured quality over quantity.
The fact a person deserves something can, sometimes, generate an obligation to provide it. And sometimes it won't.
Sometimes it will.. Sometimes it won't. Sometimes it will. Sometimes it won't. And sometimes it will.
Thus, the property of 'deserving something' is not the same as the property of 'being obliged to provide it'.
So, when I say that innocent persons do not deserve to come to harm, that it not equivalent to saying that others are obliged to prevent harm from befalling that person. Those are quite different claims, even though the former will often give rise to the latter.
Quoting Isaac
You're quite inconsistent, aren't you? One moment you're skeptical about the probative value of intuitions and the next moment you're appealing to them!
We all have to appeal to intuitions. All arguments for anything appeal to them. The validity of an argument is itself something we are aware of intuitively.
But that does not mean that intuitions are infallible and that all we have to do to find out if an act is moral or immoral is conduct a survey. You are confusing intuitionism with conventionalism or conservatism. Some - many - intuitions are worthless. Just as there are visual and other hallucinations, there are also hallucinations and illusions generated by intuition as well.
For example, imagine there's a cult that believes it is wrong to procreate and they promote this idea to their members from birth. So, there are lots of people who have been brought up on this cult and have had it reiterated to them again and again that it is wrong to procreate.
Now, would it be remotely surprising if those brought up in this cult consequently started to intuit that procreation was wrong?
No, of course not. It's what one would predict. It's precisely why people indoctrinate others - it works.
Does that intuition have probative value? If someone is a member of that cult and has the intuition that procreation is immoral, does it count for something? And would it matter how big the cult is? (The answers are 'no' and 'no')
Er, no. That simply does not follow and it is not my view. But anyway, you're not focusing on the argument.
Do you think a newly created person deserves to come to harm?
Quoting universeness
What are you on about? Where did I accuse you of lying? I said that it is wrong to lie but that it does not follow that we are obliged to stop others lying. So, the point is that an argument for the wrongness of Xing does not imply that we are obliged to stop others from Xing. Thus, an argument for antinatalism is not an argument for stopping others procreating.
The point being if you follow through the thought it is both impractical and ridiculous.
Procreating can cause increased harm as can walking down a road, breathing too loudly, sniffing a flower or not killing someone in a murderous rampage.
There is something a little clandestine in the thought that innocents deserve no harm because this kind of implies that the guilty deserve harm. Then it is a question of who decides who is or is not guilty. From a stance of newly born children then we can view them not as purely innocent creatures but more or less as vessels for future harm riddled with guilt on the immediate horizon.
Anyway, I will continue to work on my argument for antinatalism I suggest you work on an argument against it.
So, answer the question I posed to you and stop obfuscating, otherwise, you are not worth my time as you are engaging in mere sophistry. The points you raised in your OP have already been soundly defeated on this thread imo. Your dissenters make far more compelling points compared to your one or two supporters. Your viewpoint is even more fringe and more diminished in importance than it was before you started this thread. The antinatalist voice is nothing more than background white noise.
Every person I have stated the word to had never heard of it and ridiculed its main proposal and the skewed thinking behind it. At least they now know the word so I furthered your cause in that sense but the result was to add to the number of dissenters.
Quoting Bartricks
Do you think not allowing new persons to be created harms the Universe?
The answer to your question is easy. Harming a newly created person has three sources.
1. Self-harm.
2. Harm caused by another human/lifeform.
3. Happenstance.
'Deserve,' is a judgment call, a human judgment call that probably has no relevance outside of humans and lifeforms like them. I will repeat again that which is obviously inconvenient to you.
Your concern is trivial in comparison with the significance of the purpose of consciousness, which I think is to ask questions.
Quoting Bartricks
Ok, I am personally fine with that. Remain background white noise if you wish.
Anytime you try to be more than this, you will simply be returned to white noise status as you have been in this thread imo.
Just to give a more direct answer to your laboriously hyped question. NO, I don't think innocent people deserve harm but the solution is not something as dumb as don't procreate. The answer is to get better at protecting the innocent despite white noise protestations from misanthropic antinatalists that we cant achieve 100% protection against all potential harms of the innocent. We will continue to try just like we will continue to try to explain the big how and why questions regarding the universe. I am sure you will continue to make your antinatalist white noise. Furthermore, your concern for the 'innocent,' is only relevant for as long as they fully deserve the label innocent. As soon as a child deliberately manipulates their position to gain an advantage over a sibling, for example, as demonstrated in the young of most species, do they still fully deserve your 'innocent' label?
This is all that's needed. Unless you don't mind YOU yourself, don't mind causing unnecessary harm to others, no other contingencies are needed. And certainly you can agree life itself is going to be full of harm. It is a known fact..entailed in life itself. That fact however, doesn't make it right, it makes it a reason to not do something to someone else.. Just like any other case where if you know it will harm, and it is unnecessary to do so, you wouldn't do it. Unnecessary being the key here. No one NEEDS to be unnecessarily harmed. Adding (because I want to see X) would add to the wrongness, because besides having no reason, you are now using a person for your preference to see something or an agenda beyond the person affected from the harm.
I also might add, being overly paternalistic is also a factor to consider. To think that because you think this life we have in this universe is somehow a good one, that others must live it, is the height of arrogance. You are making a decision on someone else's behalf that THESE conditions of life are perfectly fine for others to have to endure. Simply because one can't have a choice to endure this life, doesn't mean "Oh, ok, this be permissible to make someone endure because this is the only thing to endure". That doesn't go together. The only choice is compliance with sub-optimal conditions or suicide if they don't like it. A terrible thing to do to someone, and again, paternalistically arrogant to think that this should be done to someone else. That beyond all the harm that will incur to someone is enough to disqualify procreation being considered neutral or good.
What is "unnecessary"?
Is refusing oneself the satisfaction of one's ego "unnecessary"?
Not at all. Already the "regular" use of scientific achievements is what causes pollution. Plastic waste is plastic waste, regardless whether produced by an honest, hardworking man or by a glutton.
Look up a textbook for learning English, under the chapter "Giving short replies".
Yes. Look up the DSM; "a religious problem" and other existential issues are actually listed as signs of mental illness.
Having relatively low aspirations in life has nothing directly to do with poverty. There is plenty of very rich, very educated people who nevertheless have relatively low aspirations in life. Their aim is the pursuit of sensual pleasures in their various forms, and that's it.
Why do you assume that?
Because they know that for a woman, it is best to be a fool, a beautiful little fool.
So even they spell it as "as a women, I ..."
It is just as arrogant to suggest this life we have in this universe is somehow a bad one and we should prevent anyone living it.
We have purpose, we ask questions. We need comparators in life to be able to differentiate. We are of the universe. Suffering must exist for us to work against it. You are suggesting we harm the universe by not existing anymore. How will the what, why, and how of the universe ever be answered, if nothing exists which is able to ask the questions? YOUR arrogance is what you should be concerned about as you would remove from the universe that which enhances it's purpose.
But you are an insignificant force and cannot stop the questions. Learn from any suffering that comes your way, do your best to prevent or alleviate the suffering of others and become part of the solution instead of what you are now, part of the problem
Quoting schopenhauer1
We are a product of the natural process of evolution and natural selection and you are trying to anthropomorphise morality into that process. At the moment we cant say much more than, were here because were here because were here because were here. Stop crying about the journey. You dont want everything to be just perfect for you as you would never experience achievement or have any purpose. Enjoy the wonderful adventure of life. Don't be a wee misanthrope who keeps complaining about the existence of suffering, FOCUS on helping alleviate it.
Stop recommending that we should harm the universe by refusing to exist within it.
Don't be so scared of life, don't be a coward!
I lay before thee, life and the curse, therefore choose life so thou mayest live, thou and thy seed.
Even atheists like me can find some use in theistic style prose.
Plastic being dumped as cheaply as possible into the oceans etc is the main cause of plastic pollution and that is done by nefarious profiteers. You need to probe deeper to understand the true causes of our bad ecological stewardship of the planet.
Quoting baker
Now now, try to keep your big boy pants on. Don't try to intimidate as you are about as intimidating as a tiptoe through the tulips!
Quoting baker
Do you suffer from such yourself?
Quoting baker
Please tell me you don't hold any positions of authority!
Quoting baker
Because I can.
Quoting baker
Are you speaking as a beautiful little fool or is that just one of the 'high aspirations,' you currently favour?
Deep, slow breaths, in and out. You'll be fine!
So stop being misogynistic! Keep your aspirations high!
It's a very simply question. Your answer is 'no'.
So that means that all the harm they suffer is undeserved. That means it is unjust.
Don't then just blurt stuff that doesn't in any way engage with the argument. Saying something doesn't make it true.
Another question for you - see if you can just answer it rather than blather on about unrelated matters.
If an act will create great injustices that another person will suffer, does that imply that it is wrong to do it, other things being equal?
Er, no. What a silly question. The universe is not a person. Do you think the universe has feelings? Do you think the universe is a bit miffed today? Do trees talk to you?
Quoting universeness
Bollocks. So, your view is that if enough of us judge you do deserve to die, then you do? And if enough people judge that members of a racial or sexual minority deserve to die, then they do? Absurd. Think it through!
We make 'judgements' about whether a person deserves blame or not. That does not mean that whether a person deserves blame or not is determined by our judgements. That's obviously fallacious. Yet that'll be your only argument for thinking that moral desert is collectively subjective. It isn't.
Whether a person deserves harm or not is not a matter our judgements determine, rather it is a matter we make judgements 'about'.
And it has nothing to do with humans. It has everything to do with persons or minds. A newly created Spock would not deserve to come to harm either, even though he's not human. Persons - subjects of experience, minds - do not deserve to come to harm (not until or unless they have free will and use it to do terrible things), regardless of what kind of body they're encased in.
But alas, this isn't what is happening. Since no one is actually harmed from being prevented, there is no actual foul for any person in this case. Besides which, if you can't know what someone would want, or even begin to understand the complex desires, personality, and makeup of someone who will be born when they develop into an autonomous adult, it is quite the opposite of arrogant as no one is actually making a judgement call on behalf of another.
Quoting universeness
Sorry, but antinatalism is not CREATING problems for OTHERS which causes a person to thus deal with those problems. This is gaslighting 101. I'm sure you aren't intentional with with your gaslighting, but that's what you are doing and promoting. You don't create problems and then say "YOU" are the problem because you don't believe in creating messes for other people to deal with.
Quoting universeness
This is the naturalistic fallacy. Being a product of nature, and intentionally following an ethic because it is seen as "natural" are two different things.. If that is what you are getting at..
Quoting universeness
Actually it's quite easy to not put other people in the "here" thing.. Just don't put them here (procreate). It's something we can do.. Unlike shitting, or eating, it's a process that is completely based on decisions and actions that are not inevitable.
Quoting universeness
But I would never create a situation of harm for people JUST so they can overcome it and feel achievement. That itself is paternalistic aggression and not good.
Quoting universeness
Everything is not an adventure. A lot of things are baked in the "situatedness of life" and are not positive. We can't will it away or ignore it either. It's things we are FORCED to deal with ONCE BORN.
Quoting universeness
Now who is anthropomorphizing? The universe can't be "harmed", and certainly by simply "not procreating".
Quoting universeness
Now you are just giving an example of a common cultural trope to reign people in who see things clearly about the inevitable harms and negative situations we must deal with and endure.
Quoting universeness
I prefer song lyrics.
No, you conflate and project 'undeserved' with 'unjust,' a point that has already been made to you many times on this thread but you are too chiseled to understand.
Quoting Bartricks
Yeah, you should stop doing that.
Quoting Bartricks
I am glad to see you make some progress. You realise that because you type something that doesn't make it true. Well done you!
Quoting Bartricks
Now, now, have a wee meditative session before you type each sentence and you may gain more control over your tiny tantrums and little schisms. Go help someone in your local area who is suffering rather than just bleat because you are not able to progress your viewpoint in any useful way.
Quoting Bartricks
Like most of your questions, this is a big, cumbersome, poorly formed one that your shallow thought processes present to you as requiring only a yes/no answer. If the justice the act creates outweighs the 'great injustices,' you claim it causes, then my answer would be No it does not imply it's wrong to do it. Do you think putting a junkie through the pain and horror of 'cold turkey,' to save their life is unjustified?
What a stupid response! A clear demonstration of how shallow your thinking is. We are OF the universe so yes it has feelings through us, as it has purpose through us. Purpose that your dimwitted antinatalism seeks to harm. You sound permanently miffed, maybe you should spend some time just hugging tree's, it might help you to hug something/anything more often.
Quoting Bartricks
Yeah, try growing some!
Quoting Bartricks
Another of your clumsy questions which ignores the vital details and naunces involved. Try to think a little deeper. For example, what REALLY matters is I can kill and a group can decide that another must die. Who was justified in doing what is normally postscript and can even be reviewed and reviewed again over time. All that matters in the case of the individual facing such a situation is will they get killed or can they or other interested parties prevent it.
Quoting Bartricks
Minds make decisions as a main function. Harm is an interpretation. Hunger is harmful and it is best to have a balanced control over it by learning. Too much sating of hunger can be harmful and satisfying a deep hunger can be a very enjoyable experience.
Innocent children, babies, (or anyone) starving to death, in a world, which is capable of feeding everyone is the fault of all humans. The solution is better human decision making not idiotic antinatalism.
You just seem a little obsessed with the concept of harm and you have jumped to a ridiculous solution, which you have tried to defend in such a chiseled way that you cannot find your way out. So you are becoming part of the background white noise. Which is where antinatalism resides and where good people will make sure it stays.
Not true as you advocate for 'prevention' of conscious/sentient lifeforms which can be harmed despite the fact such gives purpose to the universe. Such advocation is indeed arrogant as well as stupid.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Have you not noticed that the problem you are having with antinatalism, is having to be addressed by the members of this forum. I would rather be discussing ideas to improve the human experience than having to spend time trying to help you with your skewed thinking. Yes, I know that's arrogant but I also think it's true. Do the world a favour and stop being such a morose misanthrope.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You suffer from fallacy obsession as many do. My point was there is no moral imperative in the process of our origins. Evolution and natural selection has no moral driver. The harm caused by natural selection has no moral driver. I was not suggesting we follow that example on how we apply morality within human civilisations. I am suggesting that the origins of 'birth' or 'life' has no moral driver and thus is not associated with the morality of harm or suffering.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Nature compels procreation, it's why it makes heterosexual males fervently attracted to females and makes heterosexual females fervently attracted to males. Do you think your infinitesimal antinatalism can compete. :rofl:
Quoting schopenhauer1
You don't have to, providence will provide! Just deal with it when it comes your way and help others do the same. Don't stay a misanthrope.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Of course it can, I am not anthropomorphising, we are OF the universe, that is FACT.
If we are removed from it then the universe will be harmed/diminished, especially if it turns out that we are the only lifeform in the universe with our level of cognitive ability. Even if there are others, we may still be incredibly rare. To advocate antinatalism is therefore highly irresponsible and reckless, if not just plain stupid.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Easy to turn such into song lyrics. You don't want to go gospel music so perhaps thrash metal!
Giving purpose to the universe literally doesn't make sense to me. The universe is not a "thing" to give "purpose to". Humans might feel a sense of purpose, not the universe.
Quoting universeness
Non-sequitor and ad hom.
Quoting universeness
I can agree with you there...
Quoting universeness
This doesn't make sense to me. The "origins of birth" is not a disembodied thing, but a decision/action made on one person on behalf of another and indeed is laden with values about what should or should not be done and how we view harms.
Quoting universeness
Being attracted to someone is a complex phenomenon shaped by genes, development, and to a large extent cultural expectations. That is another debate though. That is not the question at hand. Being attracted to someone and thus procreating with them are two different things, even if they are related. Certainly you can make a case that people choose to be unthinking in regards to procreation and simply do what is pleasurable without forethought, but that is not a claim on the morality of procreation, just pointing out a fact of people's poor decision-making.
Quoting universeness
We owe the universe and the "species" nothing.. "They" are not entities that have the capacity to be owed. A category error.
So, you think that if a thinking thing is in the universe, then the universe also thinks? I am in my underpants. Therefore my underpants think.
Let's, just for the sake of argument, assume that the universe itself has a mind and has desires and so on. How does that affect my argument?
Focus on the argument. You do that by first assessing whether the argument is valid. Then - and only then - you move on to assessing the premises.
And if there's a premise that you think is false, don't just say that. Your opinions count for nothing unless they're backed by reason. So, show that a premise is false - or show that there is a reasonable doubt about it anyway - by showing how the negation of that premise follows from premises that appear self-evidently true.
Then thank me for teaching you how to reason like a boss, as opposed to just saying stuff.
Fair enough. It makes sense to me. We are all made of the same raw materials, all of which are natural and of the universe. We all ask questions. When we ask questions such as 'why /how/what/ are we, we are imo synonymously asking why/how/what is the universe, Creatures such as us must continue to exist to ask such questions or else the universe is harmed. Antinatalism is therefore misguided imo.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Just trying to shake you from your depressing viewpoint and your support of what I consider to be an obnoxious immoral viewpoint (antinatalism.) It is an emotive issue.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, birth is a PROCESS, its origin is evolutionary. It's the natural process of how newborn humans are brought into the world. The process stands separate from any morality based on the OP's suggestion of a violation of innocence. The natural processes involved in creating and birthing a human have no moral driver. I agree that two humans deciding to begin the process have questions of morality associated with it. The processes which occur after sex have no moral driver. The process of birth has no moral driver. BUT harm/suffering can occur during these processes. YOU and @Bartricks are suggesting that moral imperatives should be applied to processes with no moral driver. A tiny number of babies die in the womb. According to the OP, this would be a violation of an innocent and therefore this harm/suffering supports antinatalism. This is an example/consequence of the skewed logic antinatalism engages in and exemplifies how ridiculous the OP is.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, it's very much related to the question at hand. Antinatalism is a moral choice against a system with no moral driver. Reproduction within species is natural priority NUMBER 1. Most species will see males fight to the death sometimes to win the right to procreate with the female/females in season.
Heterosexual human males will also instinctively fight tooth and nail to win the ability to reproduce. Even many homosexual couples want to produce children through surrogacy etc.
In drama we get projections like the Vulcan 'Pon Far,' where every 7 years if a Vulcan does not reproduce then they will experience extreme physical and psychological imbalance.
This is based on the observed reproductive behaviour of many Earth species.
Antinatalism insists on ignoring all such natural imperatives :lol: (ridiculous), ignoring ALL OF THE HARM AND SUFFERING that would cause.
LIFE started on this planet by natural happenstance! and YOU advocate for phasing out that occurance before forms of that LIFE such as US, has even started to answer any of the questions regarding why it happened, what its purpose was/is etc and your reasons is that suffering exists alongside joy as a comparator. YOU and a tiny number of other skewed thinkers such as @Bartricks are trying to convince intelligent people that you are standing on moral high ground. You occupy no such position and I accuse you of being no more than morose misanthropes and you fully deserve that label no matter what complaint you make against it using the same old boring Latin BS phrases.
Quoting schopenhauer1
How morose and misanthropic of you to say so!
You again demonstrate your shallow thinking. You project dialogue regarding connection between individual thought and universal purpose onto your underpants thinking. You open yourself to complete ridicule.
Quoting Bartricks
Which part of 'all human thought, can be projected as a totality which currently has limited ability to demonstrate thought as a collective but can work together in common cause and communicate in ever-increasing networked manners.' do you dispute? This affects you argument because an emergent collective panpsychism for humans cannot be part of a future in which humans don't exist Sherlock!
Quoting Bartricks
I find it quite humorous that you believe that you are typing important responses here which establish 'hoops' others have to jump through or the dance steps others have to perform to argue against you using only YOUR perception of how it must be done. Again, this is laughable and delusional on your part.
You then want me to appreciate your help and you want me to see you as a 'boss.' :lol:
You remind me of a child shaking its rattle whilst its lips quiver, unhappy that it's not getting the attention/recognition it feels it deserves. It's not my fault the points you raised in the OP are so flawed and shallow in their thinking, it's your fault, It's your shallow thinking.
Any time I ever hear Donald Trump talking on TV now, I just hear a kind of overall background waaaaaaaa! waaaaaaaa! coming from him. Please don't invoke the same by what you type! It's got a high cringe factor.
Is the child responsible for any pain/suffering/stretch-marked skin etc caused to the mother during the birth process or is it a consequence of an evolutionary process that has no inherent moral driver?
Where are the supporting documents that children chose to be born? There are none!
You seem to think the universe itself has desires and so on. First, even if it did, that doesn't do anything to challenge my argument. Second, the only basis upon which you think the universe has desires would also show that my underpants have desires. I conclude, then, that you are not very good at understanding or making arguments.
No it isn't. Read the OP and stop attacking dumb strawman arguments of your own invention.
Quoting I like sushi
Argue. Read the OP. Identify the premises. Attack one. Don't just say stuff.
Quoting I like sushi
Clandestine? And no, it doesn't. If P implies Q, that does not mean that Q implies P. Those who have freely done wrong do deserve harm. But my argument does not depend upon that being true. It is sufficient that those who are innocent do not deserve any harm.
Quoting I like sushi
Reason. Reason decides it. If you think someone is innocent, that does not make them innocent. Think it through.
Then try and focus on the actual argument. Don't raise broader metaethical issues to do with the status of morality. My argument assumes no particular metaethical theory.
Quoting I like sushi
I suggest you read the OP and try and say something that actually addresses it. Like I say, identify a premise and argue against it by showing how its negation is implied by premises more powerfully self-evident to reason than those I am appealing to.
You know that's not a valid question. In the same way that the response 'where are the supporting documents that children did NOT choose to be born? There are also none!' is also not a valid question.
You claim all who suffer already support antinatalism
Quoting Agent Smith
I am arguing that the cause and purpose of all harm/suffering is very complex.
It can be very useful as a teacher. There are many examples where people may say such things as 'well if that had not happened to me then I would not be here helping you today' etc etc.
It may be that that which is deemed innocent does not deserve harm but labels such as 'innocent,' 'deserve,' 'harm' are products of human constructs of morality. But our origins have no moral driver unless you claim that evolution through natural selection does contain a moral driver.
That's why the theists scapegoat gods for all human suffering and project them as morally qualified to inflict any harm/suffering as they see fit based on the claim that the humans involved must have deserved it even (from Christian myth) the killing by god of Egyptian first born babies.
If the antinatalist claim is based solely on the injustice of human suffering then it is defeated straight away by the fact that harm/suffering can be caused with absolutely no intent behind it whatsoever.
We don't know why life exists in the universe, BUT IT DOES! It is stupid to suggest that human life should be prevented due to the possibility of experiencing harm when we understand so little about why it exists in the first place.
To me, it's like ancient humans deciding against attempting to gain any understanding or control over fire because it can harm you. It's just shallow, selfish, cowardly thinking.
Antinatalism is the posit that human reproduction is morally unjustifiable because of the possibility of suffering and it is based on shallow, selfish, cowardly thinking in my opinion.
Well, the above certainly does demonstrate how skewed your logic is and how your bad logic results in bad conclusions.
I am left with the image of you constantly shaking your white noise-making rattle and your quivering lips in a mode of permanent tantrum. Infantile shallow thinking is indeed the forte of the antinatalist.
Also, I did mention it quite clearly in my previous post that selling antinatalism to the suffering is preaching to the choir.
It's the privileged peeps we have to work on! One way is to question their guarantees of, at a minimum, aponia (freedom from suffering) to their descendants. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that won't be 100%. If worst comes to worst, I'm willing to let the rich and powerful multiply like rabbits if they so wish to. For the poor, there's no choice.
Do they not care about how childlessness can cause great suffering for many people?
I think this is a sweeping generalisation and might even in fact be a purely personal statement.
How many 'dramatisations' have you seen of people experiencing great suffering who are still very life-affirming. I personally have memories of such life-affirmation from dying people.
Look at the recent example of the death of 'bowel cancer babe' Deborah James in the UK.
A lady who was life-affirming all through her excruciating battle with cancer.
She would have spat on antinatalism!
Suffering can cause you to fervently fight for life.
[b]Dylan Thomas - 1914-1953
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.[/b]
1) This is, I believe, a new argument for antinatalism.
To procreate is to create an innocent person. They haven't done anything yet. So they're innocent.
- Having done nothing neither makes someone innocent nor guilty. It is irrelevant.
2) An innocent person deserves to come to no harm. Thus any harm - any harm whatever - that this person comes to, is undeserved.
- You have failed to explain this. If your position is that an innocent person deserves no harm but that is what innocent means then you have no argument. You are just stating something and expecting people to follow.
Either way, it is faulty to paint things so black and white. In a scenario where two innocent peoples interests conflict harm is inevitable so your definition does not hold up at all. Such inevitable harm comes about through ignorance/misunderstanding. You can still argue on some level that neither deserve harm even though two innocent people have just caused harm to each other, but only if you accept that the judgement of what someone deserves is a judgement made with an effort to ignore any blame due to ignorance.
3) Furthermore, an innocent person positively deserves a happy life.
- Unsubstantiated claim.
4) So, an innocent person deserves a happy, harm free life.
- To repeat. Unsubstantiated claim.
5) This world clearly does not offer such a life to anyone. We all know this.
- We know this because life without any degree of harm whatsoever is not life. Life requires learning and learning is always, at some stage, a hardship.
6) It is wrong, then, to create an innocent person when one knows full well that one cannot give this person what they deserve: a happy, harm free life. To procreate is to create a huge injustice. It is to create a debt that you know you can't pay.
- None of this follow as you are riding on too many unsubstantiated claims and poorly sketched out terms.
7) Even if you can guarantee any innocent you create an overall happy life - and note that you can't guarantee this - it would still be wrong to create such a person, for the person deserves much more than that. They don't just deserve an overall happy life. They deserve an entirely harm-free happy life.
- I might want to be able to fly like a bird or win the lottery. A harm free life would not be a life at all. This seems to be a rather naive view. It is a bit like expecting a child raised where their every action is praised blindly and expecting a well rounded individual to emerge from such a methodology of raising children. Many parents have attempted to protect their children too much and with pretty horrific outcomes. The very same idea of no harm whatsoever (regardless of deserving said harms) inflicted upon someone would result in early death due to said person being incapable of looking after themselves. I do not view a happy life as a life under the perpetual guardianship of a tyrant whose sole purpose is to shield said innocent from every single possible harm.
There is also the embedded problem of putting an innocent on a pedestal. An innocent person is also a person with no experience, knowledge, reason nor any real understanding of morality. Be careful if your purpose is to prolong such a state of innocence.
Anyway, I will provide a proper argument for antinatalism and I suggest you provide a proper one against it.
Is that it, is that all you have? Just 'address the argument,' no matter how many times and how many posters have not just addressed your infantile arguments but have completely debunked them and revealed them as having no substance. I have lost any sympathy for you I might have invoked. You deserve all the ridicule you get. You would be as well walking up and down the streets where you live wearing sandwich boards with the words. 'Address the argument!' written as many times as possible on both sides. Then when people approach you and ask 'what argument?" you can respond with 'I am an antinatalist with no idea how to defend the viewpoint so I thought I would make these sandwich boards and walk up and down the street as I don't know how else to defend my...............something........thoughts......I think.....?
Address the op
I think its time to treat you as an innocent. Italian sounds most apt imo.
oh mio caro bambino
Or perhaps oh mio povero bambino is more appropriate.
Sweeping generalization? I made it a point to mention the well-to-do and their right to have as many children as they wish. Only they'll never be able to ensure the happiness of their progeny to a 100%. That's gotta jolt them out of their slumber. Sometimes 99.99% just ain't enough! Life's not a joke, don't take it lightly unless you don't mind being exhumed and charged with criminal neglect of your children à la Pope Fromosus (vide Synodus Horrenda).
I literally just addressed every line of the OP you halfwit :D
Bye bye chump
I am not hopeless (even in brackets). One person's romance can be experienced by another as pure trauma.
Quoting Agent Smith
Do you really think the rich qualify as good parents merely because they are rich?
Why do so many children of the rich end up as messed up as any child of a poor person?
That's not what I meant, but you have a point; nevertheless for the guy/gal who goes through the trauma of unfulfilled love, suicide becomes an option (vide Romeo & Juliet).
Quoting universeness
Précisément!
As you yourself agree, no economic or academic or sociological condition that you possess can protect your offspring from random happenstance harms. Suffering is just a bad justification for the antinatalist viewpoint because suffering is too complicated on the cost/benefits analysis scale for it to be used as the main justification for antinatalism.
True, but for the poor, the sick, suffering > happiness. Antinatslism is for these demographics. Another issue is the difference in weightage of suffering & happiness: :sad: [math]\geq[/math] :smile: + :smile: + :smile: +... (you get the idea).
Again, I beg to differ. You made no comment regarding my example of the recent death of Deborah James who was very life-affirming despite her intense level of suffering. Your formula above would only work for her imo if it was the sick, suffering < happiness as a measure of 'totality.'
What you suggest is true for those who say it is true but that membership cannot claim all sufferers. I would dispute that it even has claim to a majority of sufferers. This is why I accused you of making sweeping generalisations, perhaps based solely on your own personal feelings.
Quoting Agent Smith
I agree that there are morose people who will focus on the single stressful event that happened to them on a particular day and that event will outweigh the multiple unstressful everyday events that occurred.
That's what a pessimist is but even in those cases it's the ability to moan about everything that makes such people content. This for them is a positive, a vent.
It is unlikely even truly evil people would advocate for antinatalism as evil people would have no one to prey on.
Antintalism would cancel the (as far as we know) around 13 billion years of time it took to produce life.
For most of the existence of the universe, the antinatalist existence was in vogue. What purpose was inherent in the universe then? Perhaps the only purpose was its progression towards creating life. If antinatalism was realised through global human will and consent then the universe would simply try again. Do you agree that this would be the most likely outcome based on what science proposed has happened since the big bang?
They are also born ignorant. Ignorant of the concepts of moral, justice, choice/ free will, harm/ suffering and the diversity of joys/ pleasantries that life will serve them. The only harm or joy they experience as an infant is basic at best and instinctual - satiety, warmth, sleep, quiet and comfort vs. Hunger, thirst, coldness and startling sensations.
To not permit them to be born and grow up you deny not only the capacity to know greater and more complex joys and wonders, you prevent them from autonomy - allowing themselves to be educated to a point in which they can be self determined, self fulfilled, self directed.
You deny them the opportunity to fight suffering, to offer goodness into the world and bring joy and comfort to those around them/ their loved ones whether or not they suffer unjustly in the process of maturing.
Furthermore, one must experience pain, suffering, illness to know what it means to suffer and therefore the importance of being a good person, of being compassionate, of being empathetic and therefore gaining the wisdom to ameliorate it in others.
One is not just a passive object subjected to suffering and joy. We are active - we create both for ourselves and for others. And therein lies the free will to do either.
To live is to survive. Its competitive, it takes effort and control and order and comes with an inherent angst - the prospect of failure and death, of decay, of the end, that every child comes to know at a certain age.
Entropy is against living systems.
I dont believe that suffering coming to the innocent is a reasonable argument for anti-Natalism because it should be the victim of said harm that decides whether it is something they can prevail over and feel proud of overcoming. And they cant do that if they are not granted the permission to live and decide for themselves.
You then proceed to make claims that presuppose that people exist prior to procreative acts being performed and desire to be brought here. That is not something one is entitled to believe.
I made no such claims in any format different to how you did. We are both speaking on the behalf of those born/ to be born and whether its morally correct or not.
I also dont see how ignorance is unjust. Theres nothing intrinsically unjust about being ignorant as long as someone knowledgeable (the parents) are providing for the needs of the ignorant. They are ignorant to both sadnesses and joys of the world so its ultimately neutral to be born ignorant.
Furthermore being ignorant allows for learning and education and trial and error. It allows for growing up which is a unique experience and part of life.
What would you suggest - that we are all immortal and omniscient?
Being omniscience the opposite of ignorant, doesnt just stop the ability to be unjust/ immoral as choice is always an option for the conscious. So its a moot point
But anyway, you then ask why they do not deserve to be ignorant. Well,is it not a bad thing to be ignorant? Why are we obliged, to some extent (and a very large extent if one is the parent responsible for having created the story situation) to try and fix the ignorance as best we can (and note, we are largely ignorant ourselves) if it is not a bad thing?
And if you admit that ignorance is a bad thing, then what has the innocent child done to deserve to be in that bad situation? By hypothesis, nothing. So, by procreating one creates a person who is going to be in a condition they do not deserve to be in. That's to create an injustice. And that's default wrong. All you have done is underline this.
Or perhaps your point was that as newly born children lack the concept of justice, then it does not apply to them. But that's false. That's as confused as thinking that as my cat lacks the concept of a cat it is therefore not a cat
One does not have the right to impose a lifetime of injustice on another person just because you want to have a little baby to look after.
First, you're begging the question, for if procreative acts visit great injustices on those whom they create, then you're default not justified in satisfying preferences to perform those acts ("but I really want to!" does not standardly justify visiting injustices on others). For what you have discovered is that you desire to do something that is default immoral. The thing to do about those desires is frustrate them and try to change them, not seek to satisfy them.
Second, there are good and bad desires. Desiring to hurt others, for example, is a bad desire. You ought not to have such desires and if you do have them, they don't entitle you to act on them. Well, the desires that some have to create and care for an invalid is a bad desire. To desire to care for those who need it, is a good desire. To desire to create an invalid so that one can then care for them - that's sick.
The desire to educate others who need it is a good desire. The desire to create ignorant persons so that one can educate them is.....sick. The desire to 'pass on one's genes' is a kind of pathetic egoism. And so on. The desires that motivate many to want to procreate are bad desires and it is good, not bad, that they go frustrated.
So, the desire to procreate is a desire to do something immoral (if you think it isn't, then you need to refute the argument in the OP). And that's a bad desire. And then there are the desires for things that procreation will provide. And those too seem to be bad desires. (Not that everyone has those other desires, of course, the point is just that it matters what desires are being frustrated).
Would you or would you not put down an animal who is beyond help but suffering (intensely)? That is to say are you for or against mercy killing? I'd wager you aren't averse to putting the suffering out of their misery with a coup de grâce.
Some of us are in a whole lotta pain, mental/physical/both; so much pain in fact that such folks would even describe their existence as hell! Wouldn't you then honor their request to die (rather than suffer)? If such cases exist and one simply can't ensure that one's children won't ever end up in a similar situation, would you still want to have kids? First of all there's the anguish of not wanting to live and to add insult to injury one has to experience the agony of dying too.
Your OP argument has been addressed and exposed as impotent.
Quoting Bartricks
I have responded in kind to your insulting manner and you will continue to get back what you try to dish out to others. Try to learn from it like a grown-up.
Quoting Bartricks
You need to look in the mirror and repeat the above words toward yourself until you learn how to debate others and come up with logical arguments.
Yeah Sherlock, humans must continue to struggle to build a fairer society for all, well done, you worked that one out all by yourself.
Quoting Bartricks
They don't Sherlock!
Quoting Bartricks
Not if the person you are trying to hurt is evil and is currently hurting others Sherlock.
The rest of the points you make are based on your usual shallow, infantile thinking. People who have children do not deliberately intend to create invalid, ignorant creatures who suffer from birth, that's just your misanthropic viewpoint which has already been discredited by poster after poster along with the points you made in the OP.
Responding to you will become for entertainment value only if you keep trying to flog your dead arguments.
You argue with the same conviction as Monty python's black knight:
In general, I do support assisted death or the right of a human to legally request termination of their own life if they are terminal and face a future of increased or maintained suffering.
Quoting Agent Smith
Yes I would.
Quoting Agent Smith
Yes because there is a plethora of examples of wonderful lives lived. Lives that have made massive contributions to human progression. Lives that have impacted millions of other lives in very positive ways. I have experienced a great deal of happiness and wonderment in my own life and I continue to do so. I have also experienced some intense suffering but not compared to others. Such measurements are all relative. I think its nonsense to require surety of a pain-free life, as a prerequisite to having a child.
Humans have to learn and grow into what they will become. You need to face comparators such as pain and pleasure to be able to become anything of value. That's why heaven would soon become hell for 'thinking' humans. Only automatons with no individual personality could enjoy something as insipid as heaven.
Quoting Agent Smith
This may sound a little strange, but I am in earnest. I would personally prefer what you describe above than what is offered by the Christian description of heaven. An eternity of purposeless existence in homage to a gods ego. After a million years of pleasure, do you think you would only crave suffering just so you could feel something to compare your million years of pleasure against?
You can defeat 'the anguish of not wanting to live' by reacting to it differently and you can defeat 'the agony of dying' by getting pumped full of morphine/heroin etc when death is close.
I agree that if there is no hope for you then it's time to offer you every legal/illegal high on the market.
As I said, I support assisted death. I also support the use of any drug that can produce euphoria for those in great pain and who are close to death, as available and free and based on personal choice.
I don't know if I would choose such. I might after I have said all my goodbyes to those who matter to me when I still had my wits about me.
I welcome death however as a harbinger of change. I also advocate for transhumanism and more individual control over and choice regarding when you die.
a
Well, in line with what you said, antinatalism probably spawned in a fit of severe depression and to that extent its validity is questionable.
Like all things, antinatalism isn't meant for everybody, being reserved as it were for extreme suffering, the kind that makes Thanatos a friend instead of his usual role as a foe in people's lives. Nobody wants to go to hell for sure! That should make natalists think a thousand times before they go preaching door to door.
Are you referring to your own dalliances with the concept of antinatalism?
Quoting Agent Smith
Antinatalists don't present it that way however. They declare having children as immoral regardless of how many examples exist of people who have declared something like 'I have had a wonderful life,' on their deathbed. They will focus on those who declare something like 'Life was crap,' on their deathbed.
Perhaps we need official stats on deathbed declarations about quality of life.
Quoting Agent Smith
Well, it doesn't exist anyway but do you not think an ETERNITY in heaven would become the same torturous experience as hell?
Quoting Agent Smith
I don't know who you are really referring to? The main advocate for reproduction is natural instinct in my opinion not door-to-door people who try to encourage reproduction. Some like catholic priests may well do so to newly wedded young Catholics perhaps but not much nowadays probably.
I personally advocate for only having children when you can afford to and when you think you can genuinely offer them a good chance at a good life and you are fairly sure will be there to support them.
Antinatalism as a general proposal for the future of the human race is beyond contempt in my opinion and anyone who advocates for it should be fervently engaged in debate and be revealed as the misguided fools they are.
Let's meet halfway as I've been suggesting, unknowingly, all along. Those who can guarantee a reasonable degree of comfort for their children are welcome to procreate but those who can't should use contraceptives/avail of abortion clinics/at the very least, have fewer kids. Life isn't jannat, but it ain't jahanam either. For reasons that are not too hard to see the exact opposite is the case - the poor, the represntative of the suffering lot, have larger families than the rich, the spokespeople of those who can provide a comfortable life for their children. It's as if we're being led up the garden path and whose operation is this? Ours! :snicker:
I have no children of my own because I was unable to establish the necessary stable environments (couldn't pick a good woman out of a crowd if my life depended on it) and I am too old now Imo. I have always spoken against having children just because you can or as an attempted insurance for your own old age. These cautions are very far indeed however from the main tenets of antinatalism.
I think poor people traditionally had a lot of children either due to religious doctrine or because they believed this was the best way to ensure they had help when they grew old. I agree that both of these reasons are bad.
Do children protest against the injustice, if it is an injustice, of having been born? It seems so. It occurs to some children to remind their parents that they 'did not ask to be born'. This is usually a complaint. But it is not typically brought out in response to suffering. Children who suffer, like adults, might regret living or even wish to die, but it is not in response to suffering that they typically blame their parents for visiting birth upon them. The complaint 'I didn't ask to be born' is usually advanced in response to criticism for moral failings or a demand to shoulder responsibility. For example: "You are making our lives very difficult with your bad temper and sloppiness around the house." "Well, I didn't ask to be born."
Should we dismiss the complaint as the immature nonsense of the adolescent? Possibly. But the complaint has something in it - otherwise it would not be so commonly used. It seems to be a complaint about lack of consent. "You don't like the way I am? Well, you made me. It wasn't my idea." And to that extent it's a well grounded complaint. We do not consent to our own birth or to almost anything else that happens to us for the first months and years of life. We do not have the capacity to consent. But lack of capacity to consent or to withold consent is generally no excuse for acting without a person's consent. The complaining child is casting the parent somewhat in the role of a kidnapper who has no grounds for objecting to their victim's annoying habits. The victim has reduced responsibility to take account of the kidnapper's interests and feelings simply because they did not choose to be kidnapped. When a parent asks a child to take responsibility for making the family home unhappy then the response amounts to saying "But I have no responsibility. You visited this whole situation on me and now you have to deal with it."
So far so good for the argument.
So lack of capacity to consent or to withold consent is generally no excuse for acting without a person's consent. Bad news for drug rapists. In the case of consent to birth, however, the lack of capacity stems from the non-existence of a person. A person cannot have asked to be conceived because there was no person to ask or to be asked. So the kidnapping or drug-rape analogy cannot apply. The conception of a child is not a case of parents' choosing a pre-existent soul to embody into their offspring. Just as no child has lost out from never having been conceived, so no child was done an injustice by being conceived, because no child existed to experience either the loss of opportunity or the injustice.
How does that stand up as a reply?
In my opinion, it stands up but on rather shaky legs. But this post is long enough.
Our reproductive strategy gives us a clue about what we were up against - we were prey, on our toes 24×7. Imagine what that would've meant for young children, having to constantly scan the surroundings for predators looking for an easy meal which we were. Our biology betrays the truth about ancient human life - like Locke said, "short, brutish, and nasty".
Things have improved, thanks to our brains! Had prehistoric humans had the time to think things through, mass suicide would've meant the end of humanity. Muchas gracias tigers, leopards, lions, wild dogs, and the occasional coyote for keeping us from pondering upon the nastiness of life by constantly harrassing us - we owe our very existence to you! :snicker:
Those early experiences are still part of who we are and still directly influence our primal fears.
The struggle will continue, the antinatalists are utterly impotent. The need to find out how and why we and the universe exists, remains compelling and it remains the main purpose of our species.
We are currently mortal and transhumanism is in its infancy so we still require children to replace those who die. I think we always will produce new children as the universe is such a big place, so even in the very distant future of transhumans, I think will still need newborns.
Transhumanism, refreshingly upbeat! I like it - it acknowledges the problem of suffering (nod to antinatalism) but then goes on to say that we can, get this, abolish suffering (nod to natalism).
[quote=Ms. Marple & Hercule Poirot]Most interesting, oui?[/quote]
Yes, I think we will gain much better control over all examples that we currently call human suffering and we will have much more choice about how (and for how long)we individually choose to live and die.
This is 2022 thats a lot closer to a planck time duration when compared to almost 14 billion years since the big bang. Again to all antinatalist misanthropes I would shout 'give us a f****** chance you cowards!'
We have to play our cards right and we'll get through this antinatalist phase in one piece. That said, life, there's lotta room for improvement and we have, over the past few centuries, managed to better our lot even if at the expense of other life. Guilty pleasures, that's all that's on offer at the moment. If not eliminate, like you said (morphine), minimize suffering (@180 Proof ).
I see this the same as saying, "Don't harm people unnecessarily". Unnecessarily implies that there was no good reason to harm that person. Then you can ask what might count as that no good reason. If a person didn't need to ameliorate a greater harm with a lesser harm, and it affects that person, and you cause harm, that harm would be unnecessary for that person being affected. Harming a person for a reason outside the person being affected (especially if there can be no input had by that person being affected) is simply using them.
But this isn't the case of birth so a red herring. At least you haven't made that connection.
I see this as just reiterating my restatement, "No one needs to be harmed unnecessarily".
Same as above for my answer.
Just because life requires X suffering, doesn't justify imposing that suffering on others unnecessarily. The theme of this whole thing!
But again, you are presuming/assuming for someone else that they have to be harmed because YOU deem it good that they are harmed.. Because, as you admit, life entails harm- and we are not talking JUST trivial harms either.. but very significant and foreseeable harms.. And not only significant foreseeable harms, but ones that couldn't even be predicted if one thought about it.. And these are harms of all sorts of situations, some related to not wanting to do X that life entails of you (existential harms), and others to the usual physical/emotional harms we see people go through over and over. Then there are others we could not foresee that we would never want people to go through, and would have not wanted it had we known it would have happened to that person.
Indeed, if one can't get consent, one cannot presume that it should be fine to:
a) cause significant amounts of harm unnecessarily on someone else's behalf
b) impose on them the parameters of this existence (needing to deal with survival, comfort, etc.) which was not asked for, but cannot be escaped easily
And yet, here we are with a paternalistically aggressive mindset whereby parents presume that they should be able to create these situations for someone else.
Apply the violations entailed in procreation to almost any other situation regarding an autonomous adult, and it would violate other moral intuitions that we have about consent, harm, impositions, and using people. It is indeed, causing UNNECESSARY harm, UNNECESSARY impositions, and therefore using people for X ends OUTSIDE that person being considered/affected.
@Bartricks, to be fair to Sushi, he did answer your OP line by line.
If one is alone on an island then ethics in regards to other people doesn't matter, yet ethics is still valid. Once another person lands on the island, ethics is now back in play. The absence of people using it, doesn't negate its validity.
So you are literally stating the cause for which you are using people (by harming them unnecessarily).
You are talking as if the possibility of a child is a fiction. The possibility that a real child will be born is "on the table" so to speak. You are simply not allowing that option to play out for someone else. So an injustice was not done (because the possibility exists that it can).
Currently busy arranging trip so it is not exactly the most important thing atm but WILL present an argument for antinatalism and go over several misconceptions on both sides that I have seen others repeat.
Either way:
- You validated what I said about the loose use of terms and I do not assume what is or is not meant by harm (meaning if he meant unnecessary harm then he should have said that AND been particular about what unnecessary harm means).
- No red herring. He argued, quite clearly, that innocent people do not deserve harm. If unborn/non-existent people are somehow different in terms of innocence then that is something the OP needs to outline and differentiate between not me.
- I would say that life necessitates suffering and that suffering is necessary for any life-form in some capacity. That is what I would call necessary suffering rather than throwing a blanket over all suffering as unnecessary. You yourself pointed out that there is necessary and unnecessary harm. If you are not entirely opposed to the idea of necessary harm - which would be peculiar as if we call something necessary then it seems fairly validated - then must surely admit that some harm/suffering is actually beneficial.
In conclusion it seems that the harms you berate are the harms I see as strengthening peoples and individuals so they can live good lives.
The whole consent issue was not mentioned in the OP sadly. That is another area where there are huge misconceptions cast by both sides and all it takes is to listen and agree or disagree. No one consents to being born and no one (or rarely) consents to dying. I did not consent to gravity either and it is right there in the hyperbole where the nuances of the argument begin to be lost. Gravity is not exactly a phenomenon of nature like birth is, but picking apart what is similar and different in these two phenomenons might help.
My view is basically formed around the use of hypotheticals and general dislike for ethics (meaning something announced to the community as good or bad). My dislike is due to the constant self manipulation we torture ourselves with due to peer pressures and general societal norms.
My argument for antinatalism (whenI complete it) is more or less going to be about how the argument can benefit us collectively and as individuals.
It would be interesting to see how you could write an argument against antinatalism. Will you attempt that?
Who's the judge :wink:
Quoting I like sushi
I can't speak for Bartricks. Personally, I would not have used language like "innocence" but it seemed to me that it can be reformulated using other terms that don't have such a Christian or legal-retributive connotation to it.
Quoting I like sushi
What I mean is that in this case of procreation I don't see that scenario you described of two people's conflicts harming each other applying. I'm still thinking if that itself can be considered "innocent" though, because now motives come into play. Why aren't these people able to compromise? Isn't that itself impugning some sort of characteristic flaw that can be considered "not so innocent"? Either way, that one seems on shaky grounds on its own, and not relevant in this particular case of "innocent persons".
Quoting I like sushi
Surely, I would not CREATE harm for someone so they can do something about it.. whatever reasons I have to want to see it according to my preferences.. My preferences take a back seat here. But I do recognize harms that need to take place in order to help someone out or to prevent further suffering for a person. These cases are always of course when someone actually exists, as they are already in the situation and one must weigh greater or lesser harms now, unless you simply don't care and want that person to die or be harmed or are indifferent to them being harmed which in itself can be construed as callous and unethical.
Quoting I like sushi
Yes, indeed this is the main disagreement for most of these arguments. Somehow people have what I characterize as "aggressively paternalistic" beliefs that they should be able to create the conditions for harm to others because they have a preference to see this come about.. Whether good things come about from those impositions doesn't seem to matter, ethically speaking. It is simply a preference with obviously significant collateral damage that people simply waive off as fine to do, when otherwise, they wouldn't do that to someone, even if they thought it was best for them (if it was an autonomous adult).
Quoting I like sushi
Um yes, huge differences in gravity and procreation.. While I do indeed think there are misconceptions, I think we disagree on where. For example, the main difference is that procreation occurs due to a decision made.. one made from one person on behalf of another, and without consent. Even if you were to give a wildly ridiculous answer like, "Well, we can choose to live in space where there's no gravity", it still is a decision one can make and consent to where birth would never have that luxury. Of course, being that living in space is not really viable for most people, and would probably lead to death, it becomes like many other things about life (and actually part of what makes it a negative) a de facto, non-starter for this current state of affairs.
Quoting I like sushi
I can sympathize with this. We can use other terms for what is going on in this argument for antinatalism. I guess ethics is a placeholder idea for not allowing mere preferences to rule what is best to do. So, if you are a vegetarian but you like meat, you might really prefer it and say "fuck it" and eat meat even if it doesn't align with what you normally think is a valid principle. People do it all the time..
Quoting I like sushi
This to me, might not be a valid argument (even if for antinatalist principles) from the start. I think ethics really obtains at the level of a person affected. That is to say, causes outside an actual person that are generalities (including "humanity" or "the universe") would be invalid ethical recipients. This to me means some kind of quasi-Kantian idea that people have a dignity which can be violated. That is why I am so against aggressive paternalism in regards to what OTHERS consider "benign harm" on BEHALF of someone else. No one gets to set the standard for someone else that THIS is acceptable, even though its a known harm.
In this presumed just world, nobody would ever be landing. Justice would be done - no undeserved harm would be inflicted by birth - no-one would be born. There would not even be anybody to pride themselves on having acted with justice. So, yes, it would be just. But completely empty. Mathematics would also be valid but there would be no-one to do it.
No as in the transhuman future I envisage there will be a lot more options to control what YOU currently consider 'harms.' Even today, you have a skewed view of human suffering and its function. Your viewpoint is shallow and based on your own fears.
I understand why anyone with little in their lives on a day-to-day basis, except suffering, turning to whatever escapism they are able to take part in. I wish I had more power to help all such people.
Other humans becoming organised and insisting on change for the better is the main hope such people have had. This remains the case at present and it has been ever thus.
They will certainly get no help from antinatalists as they tend to merely watch and complain that life is just too scary for them.
Major change for the better is very slow but it has happened many times, life is better for most humans than it has been in the past.
There are so many stories of humans who have experienced extreme suffering and they have been shown intense love and care because of it and that exchange has produced deep meaningful relationships between many carers and those who are cared for. The antinatalists would have you believe that all who suffer, do so alone, in the dark with no help or care from anyone. They also peddle the BS that all of those who suffer would prefer not to have been born. Just false impressions that feeds their messed-up personalities.
In nature, sexual reproduction just happens to be the method that became established for humans. We might have been asexual reproducers like the Komodo Dragon, Burmese Python, Bonnethead sharks etc. If humans reproduced asexually, they would still suffer as they do today, they would just have less choice about procreation. I don't normally suggest hypotheticals but it's an interesting posit imo.
If humans reproduced asexually, where would that leave antinatalists?
If we met a sentient asexual alien species who suffered in the same way as humans do. What would your antinatalist advice be for them?
I suspect your response will be unimaginative like 'I don't answer hypotheticals' or 'that's a matter for them, if such creatures exist.'
You also have not answered the following:
For many humans, not reproducing would cause great mental and physical harm as it is a natural compulsion developed over millions of years and it is a very very strong instinct. Why are you unconcerned about this set of harms your antinatalism would cause?
You may harm the universe, as life was evolved from within it and YOU have no idea why so how do you know that your antinatalist suggestion would not be very harmful indeed to the progress of a possible emergence of a collective universal consciousness. The totality of all individual consciousnesses.
Perhaps, preventing that, would cause more harm than all human suffering ever has or could. How do you know differently?
That's because the consent argument is quite different.
This the problem with most of you - you seem incapable of focusing. There's more than one argument for antinatalism. And I just made a new one. So it's not the same as the others. See? Look up 'new'.
It's a 'new' argument for antinatalism. So, obviously - obviously - I will not be mentioning already existing arguments that are well known, such as the consent argument.
So, again, the argument is that procreative acts bring into being a person who deserves much more than they are going to get and positively does not deserve a lot of what they are going to get.
A person is created innocent and thus is created deserving no harm whatsoever. Yet they will receive harm. That harm is unjust. Thus procreative acts create an injustice.
To dispute this claim you need to argue either that people are born deserving to come to harm, or you need to argue that despite creating this great injustice there is something else of overwhelming moral importance that justifies a person in creating it.
You type like a fundamentalist preacher. You ignore all the valid counterpoints made by others and just continue to preach from your antinatalist pulpit. Keep going! you will encourage more procreating than the music of Barry White ever did!
If you are right and if any of us are parents then a lack of focus is the least of our faults. Desert and consent are not unrelated. If I choose to drink too much and get a bad hangover, then I get what I deserve. If someone spikes my drink and I get a bad hangover then I get something I don't deserve. Consent and choice make the difference between the deserved and undeserved in that instance. Not necessarily in all instances. "I didn't choose to be born" is the cry of the adolescent. "I didn't choose to be born - so I don't deserve this" they sometimes add. It's an argument made in temper by immature characters. But it's got something.
Quoting Bartricks
There is a third option. I could grant the conclusion of the argument and then show that it ramifies to nihilism (the 'slingshot' argument above). It's wrong for people to have children and they ought to do what's right; so no children, no human race; no human race, no ethical debate possible.
When we commit an injustice against somebody we may be required to give them some compensation if we cannot undo the harm. Perhaps the best compensation that parents can give, having inflicted life on an undeserving infant, is to give it the care and love that will as far as possible protect it from further unnecessary harm. Either that or an empty world.
"Don't go changing, to try and please me......"
I think that was just a cover of the Billy Joel song 'just the way you are.'
I was thinking more of Barry singing songs like:
Some of his songs were supposed to have caused a lot of procreation so big Barry was an antidote for any antinatalists BS.
But yeah, Batricks won't go changing unless it pleases him. he is too chiseled to know how to do otherwise.
That would be an additional argument.
The slingshot shows that if we agree that it is wrong to procreate, then we cannot rule out destruction of the race as undesirable or as something that we might have a duty to prevent. A person might happily agree with the OP and also agree that ending the race is not only desirable but a positive duty.
Conversely, if a person finds it difficult to accept that the end of the race would be a good idea, then they may question the soundness of the OP.
You have not described a third option, but simply ventured a version of the second option.
And it fails. If we all stopped procreating that would not make nihilism true.
Here:
Don't procreate.
Quoting universeness
Because not being able to unnecessarily harm others, even if it frustrates ones preferences, even if one is doing it because one wants to focus only on the possible positive outcomes, and intends only the best, is wrong. Positive intentions and hopes do not negate the unnecessary harm. Also, as you stated, sometimes people want to impose unnecessary harms (and call it "learning experiences"). This is mere paternalistic aggression of deciding for others what kind of harms are "benign". I am not talking about just parent's duty to care for children in a certain societal setting either. I mean all of life is going to have harms, and you can try your best to dismiss them as "learning experiences", but then you can cause any harm to someone else in the name of "learning experiences", but you most likely would not do that. Rather, unnecessary harm is unnecessary harm. There should be no cover for imposing on others unnecessary harm for any presumption of "what is best for that person" to happen. I can make a slippery slope argument there, but I won't even bother because even on the face of it, it should be apparent that procreation is a glaring exception in what is otherwise misguided thing to do someone.
The slingshot argument does not claim to establish that continuation of the race justifies any course of action or even that it's a good idea, let alone a duty. The argument establishes that if it is unjust to procreate and if justice is preferable to injustice and if 'ought' entails 'can', then the end of the race cannot be ruled out as less preferable than its continuation. Nothing is said or implied or entailed about the end of the race or its continuation being good, bad or indifferent.
Quoting Bartricks
I agree. Nihilism may well not be true, whether we procreate or not. Actions, right or wrong, do not, merely by being committed or omitted, establish or invalidate moral principles. Murder would be wrong, whether or not anybody ever commits a murder. And if we all start murdering each other, that would not make murder right.
This is a salient point that people keep overlooking. There are the few cases where there are sociopaths that do these things.. I would say that is a small minority (but can be very damaging). The majority may simply just reason wrongly because preferences are often pitted against principles.
In cases of murder, it is much more black and white. It is the grey area that reasoning has to really get more refined to overcome one's mere preferences. Procreation is one such case. As you indicate, there is a pessimism to it and a sort of aesthetic sadness for many people in the idea of the end result being no person around.. But that doesn't mean the principle is not true. Much of that sadness may come from projection of fears of death and loneliness. But it's not part of the reasoning.
In other words, you can't be committed to moral reasoning and then say, "I feel lonely and sad about some projected future state, ergo, I get to inflict unnecessary harms on others because that makes me sad".
I agree.
[quote=Cuthbert]Let's grant all the OP. [/quote]
That was the first premiss in the post I called the 'slingshot' argument. The argument does not dispute any claim made in the OP. Let it be that the infant is undeserving and that the parents commit injustice and that nothing can justify or excuse their actions. Granted for sake of argument.
The reason I called the argument 'slingshot' is that it does not dispute the OP. Rather, it establishes the epistemic cost of agreeing with it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Schopenhauer, you are willing to bear that cost. It's admirable for consistency. It is unlikely to find wide adherence but that is perhaps not relevant.
And still, as you say, Bartricks, the OP remains unchallenged by my argument, which explicitly accepts the OP for sake of argument.
Can't beat a bit of Billy Joel. A much better songwriter than most, including Paul McCartney imo.
You have been knocked out so many times you are punchy and stuck in repeat BS mode.
You remain an entertainment!
How many contributers did you get to your second BS thread on antinatalism?
Only some sympathy posting from the tired musings of shopenhauer1.
Perhaps you should read up on how asexuality works!
Quoting schopenhauer1
Nonsense, as for many it would not merely 'frustrate one's preference,' it would prevent them from fulfilling a deeply held natural compulsion and would cause them serious mental and physical harm.
You just handwave this suffering away which reveals you as a hypocrite who does not care about the suffering of others if their suffering does not fit the skewed logic you use to promote your morose antinatalist viewpoint.
Quoting schopenhauer1
More nonesense, all of life, is NOT going to have harms. When you take a painkiller your pain reduces, it does not get worse. Do all medicines do harm in your skewed world? Antinatalism is an unnecessary harm it causes many many harms. You, therefore, advocate for harming others by suggesting that no one deserves children despite reproduction being a strong natural dictate for the survival of any species. Your antinatalism is vile but harmless and will only ever gain any credence among the fringefreaks in society.
Yeah, right. You really hurt me when you smashed your face onto my knee and then repeatedly hit my foot with your crotch. Good technique!
No, it makes one innocent. If you think otherwise, explain - don't just blankly state as if you saying it makes it so. To be guilty one has to have done something, yes? So, if someone has not done anything, they are not guilty of anything. And that's to be innocent. That's an explanation. Now provide me with an explanation of how someone who has not done anything is not, in fact, innocent (don't just nay say).
Quoting I like sushi
It's a conceptual truth. It's also a premise in an argument, not the argument itself.
If you think the premise is false then you need to do the following: construct an argument in which the negation of that premise is the conclusion and the premises of which are very plausible - that is, premises that seem self-evident to reason.
Note: going through expressing hostility towards premises does not constitute a rational criticism of them. So far this is all you've been doing. Quoting I like sushi
It's a premise. So, yes, it's a claim. Arguments must include at least one. (I've noticed that most people here do not understand this and think it a fault in an argument taht it has premises - including you, it would seem).
Do you think it is false? Does your reason not tell you directly that an innocent person deserves to be happy?
What about this claim: innocent persons deserve respect. That's true, isn't it? And they haven't done anything to deserve that respect.
Now, doesn't an innocent person also deserve to have their interests taken into account, even though they have yet to do anything? And so they deserve to have their happiness promoted. Isn't the best - because simplest - explanation of that that they deserve happiness?
Again: it is no criticism of an argument to point out that it has premises. You need to challenge its premises by showing how a rational consideration implies its negation. (Note, this is a lot trickier than just expressing negative attitudes towards premises)
Quoting I like sushi
That in no way challenges the premise. The premise is true, yes? That's all you've said - you've confirmed the premise, not challenged it.
Quoting I like sushi
Show it, don't spray it. THis is just another version of the 'the problem with your argument is that it has premises" 'criticism'.
Note, every claim I have made is true. You haven't raised a reasonable doubt about any of them.
Me: 2+ 2 = 4
You: Unsubstantiated claim!! What if I think 2 + 2 = 89? Boom. Owned!
Me: if P, then Q is true, and if P is true, then Q is true.
You: Unsubstantiated claim!
And so on.
Again, if you disagree with a premise, P, then you need to construct an argument like this:
1. If P, then Q
2. Not Q
3. Therefore not P
Now, I would claim that in order to do that you are going to have to write something silly for 2. But we'll see.
Dude, you should know basic definitions before you make a fool of yourself: "Procreation- the production of offspring; reproduction".
Reproduction can be asexual or sexual.
Quoting universeness
It's arguable that it is a "compulsion".. Wanting something like a baby, comes from the same place as wanting other things. It's a pseudo-scientific type of misconception that the idea of "Wanting a baby" is something more deeply rooted. You can make an argument that sexual pleasure is evolutionarily selected to be pleasurable, and people tend to want what is pleasurable, and that can lead to procreation.. But the actual concept of "I....Want....a.... (Put anything here) " is much more than basic brain stem operation, or other subcortical activity.. It comes from the same process that shapes your other preferences. In other words, there is no "I want a baby instinct"... only "I want a baby preference" which correlates with possible "instincts" for pleasure which lead to procreation. It is just convenient for you to conflate the two and make this particular preference into an "instinct".. I can also sympathize (a little) with your confusion as in most other animals, there are strong instincts when animals are in heat that lead to sex which lead to reproduction.. But that is not how human reproduction works. There is no black and white "if/then" type reproduction going on.. A lot of it is cultural, personal, individual, existential (as with other preferences) much more than your reductionist "instinct".
Quoting universeness
Again, unnecessarily harming people is always wrong. To feel like you are missing out on a preference- even a strongly held one, is not an excuse to go ahead and unnecessarily harm someone because you don't want to feel the loss of the preference. It's like an activity you were looking forward to sounded really fun to you, but it turned out that activity was very harmful.. It doesn't mean, too bad do the preferred activity.
Quoting universeness
I'm only addressing your question as the rest is ad hom unrelated rambling. I was talking about specifically using the justification that your unnecessary harm is excusable because it will precipitate a "learning experience".. But learning experiences are only justified when they are necessary.. To create the mess so that someone can "have a learning experience" is the messed up problem.. It's causing harm to see a person overcome harm.. It's not JUST helping someone overcome harm. If you don't see the problem there or don't understand it, I can't help you.. that's on you being too caught up with your indignation to not engage in what I am saying.
Quoting universeness
See above about being too caught up in your own indignation.. This is aggressive ad hom, and not sticking to any sort of argument. Also, concluding with an ad populum fallacy doesn't help your case much either.
There you go! You don't even see the sources of your own suffering. Your stressed brain invokes my imaginary face and crotch, that's probably just your imaginary thinking underpants trying to communicate with you again, as your compromised intellect smashes off the canvas once again.
You have been revealed as a shallow thinker by almost every poster on this thread, you are just too far gone to realise it. You continue to entertain me as well as be a good exemplar of a bad interlocutor.
Travel to the future and ask X "do you wish you weren't born?" If the answer is "yes", go back to X's parents and inform 'em that X doesn't want to exist. The parents must comply with X's request (contraception preferrable but abortion permitted only a last resort). The perfect solution - customized to the client, just as it should be, eh?
Right back at you DUDE! Asexual reproduction does not require procreation with a mate so advising a creature that does not reproduce through sex, not to reproduce shows your ignorance.
Asexual reproduction happens through parthenogenesis, there is no choice for the parent involved DUDE.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No it's not! For many humans it is the biggest imperative in their existence. I know that for you, this is just another of those pesky, inconvenient biological facts, that debunks your confused antinatalism.
The entire animal kingdom demonstrates how strong the reproductive imperative is every single year and we are a member of the processes that produced all other life species on the Earth.
You attempt to handwave away all of that rigorous scientific biological truth with the claim that 'human reproductive urges are no more than insignificant whims, similar to an urge for some chocolate.' You are peddling BS bottles of Dr schopenhauer1 or bottles of batshit crazy batricks as the elixir to solve the problem of human suffering. :rofl: You could make a good comedy duo but not a valid argument.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You have been told many times now that this is just your shallow thinking and the issue of human suffering is NOT COVERED by your small concept of 'unnecessary harms.' You have been given many examples. Here is another for you. Don't touch things that are too hot because such will cause you harm. Receiving pain from something which is too hot is not an unnecessary harm, but it is a harm regardless of your status as an innocent. Your dimwitted antinatalism offers the solution 'well if you are not born then you cannot burn your skin and experience that suffering.' How seriously dumb is that?
As others have already told you, if no one exists then you cannot even pose the dilemma! The universe would most likely have NO PURPOSE! If we exist then we give the universe purpose and that is far far more important than your silly little fears regarding human suffering. Stop being such a coward and work hard towards causing as much joy in the lives of others as you can. In that way you might become useful to human society instead of a complete waste of DNA. We are short of many good species like panda bears we are not short of misanthropic humans like you.
You and bartricks can hold hands and skip towards oblivion together.
I'll give you this, I lost the thread of your original post on asexual reproduction. All I responded to at that point was this:
I had to look back to see if you mentioned the part about asexual reproduction having less choice (because that is the salient point).. So let me get your thought experiment straight: you have a made up an alien who apparently is sentient enough where I can communicate with them and where they can evaluate my input into the philosophy of procreation, BUT also asexually reproduce in a way where they can't help it. I would simply consider that an unfortunate situation, and not a moral one because they can't have a choice in the matter. What do you think I would say? Morality comes from being able to effectively make a decision one way or the other. A lion eating its prey can't deliberate on it, so it is amoral. It is unfortunate for the prey getting eaten at that particular time though, nonetheless.
Quoting universeness
Rhetorical blather. Stick to an argument, it's a better look.
Quoting universeness
Mostly more blather and no argument.. The little argument you try to make doesn't counter anything I said. If you want to counter it, make a point about how this specific preference is different than other perferences other than simply the parallel circumstance that it is about continuing the species.. Just because an act is about continuing the species doesn't de facto mean that act comes from a place of unthinking, non-deliberative instinct. We happen to be a species that reproduces in a complex way that involves all the things I mentioned in the earlier post. The actual preference for "wanting X" works the same whether it's for babies, food, cars, house, drugs, whatever. You have not overcome the argument that to conflate THIS preference with instinct is pseudo-scientific misconception. In other words.. I refer you to my last post and try again but without just insults as your arguments.
Quoting universeness
Actually I have not been given "many examples" or "many examples" that would contradict the rule at least.
Quoting universeness
This has nothing to do with what I am talking about. Unnecessary harm here has been explained earlier. It has to follow criteria like:
1. You are doing it on behalf of someone else...
2. You are NOT ameliorating a greater harm for a lesser harm (so lightly punishing a child for bad behavior or making them go to school or get a shot would NOT be unnecessary under most circumstances in our society)
3. It could have been avoided and you knew it
Things that are unnecessary harms are harms that didn't need to be imposed on someone, but they were anyways. All future harms X will befall someone who is procreated. The cause of the procreation is the parent's behavior. All future harms X would not have befallen someone if they were not effected to exist by the acts of others..
Quoting universeness
The way you phrase it doesn't make sense. It's always morality about what the parents do, not the child born.
Quoting universeness
Yeah your sense of morality is messed up to me because it implies that people are to be measured by their "usefulness". I am sure you are going to say "useful" is a vague notion of something that "helps the species survive" or something like that... If it was being compassionate to people, then while I agree, to procreate people so that they can fix each other's problems is just the leaky bucket argument. I say fix the leak, not clean the mess. And before you drone on about how no humans would exist to fix the leak for.. I refer you to philosopher David Benatar's asymmetry argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Benatar
Quoting universeness
You sound like an inventory clerk checking the back of the warehouse. We are short on panda bears..
Anyways, if you are going to continue to berate me with insults instead of simply arguing your point, I am done here.. I have been on this forum for way too long and have argued against way more interesting posters to not have to be belittled by your poor debate skills. Insults and ad homs are unnecessary in this case. It makes your arguments LESS credible because it sounds desperate, like you need the theatrics of "you dimwit" and "coward" and things like this.. It also just hurts the philosophical spirit of dialogue in general.. Two political sides just insulting each other is not debating the policies at hand. We've all seen examples of constructive debate and something that resembles a debate but was just a way to insult the other side.
You are a moron. That is not true it is my opinion. Do you understand the difference? I think not.
Bye bye. Not interested in any exchange with you for at least 3 months. You are officially in my sin bin.
Have fun :)
Perhaps from the 'thought experiment' of a sentient species that reproduces asexually and has no natural control over the process but still 'suffers' in life in the exact same way humans do, would help you see how shallow your antinatalism is. The fact that humans procreate sexually is a biological happenstance and therefore the origin of procreation through sex had no moral driver (as I have now stated many times.)
Human procreation is not the source of all human suffering as humans were produced by processes with a time span of 13.8 billion years. If you advocate for terminating that process then you are negating every process which naturally occurred within that 13.8 billion years to produce humans and your sole, tiny little reason is human suffering. You are unable to see how ridiculous your reasoning and your suggestion is. Humans are capable of reducing the more heinous forms of human suffering if misanthropes like you give us a chance to. Meantime try to help out rather than add to the suffering by typing the BS you type.
Quoting schopenhauer1
So by your logic, would you stop a lion from eating a human? If your answer is yes then why do you feel differently when its a lamb getting eaten by the lion? Does the lamb not suffer?
Does your morality about suffering flex quite a bit depending on which creatures are involved?
Animals suffer, would you not prefer your antinatalism to free them from their horrific sufferings?
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think your viewpoints are illogical so I am hardly likely to pay attention to your opinions of what is 'a better look.'
Quoting schopenhauer1
Nonsense, You claim I have not 'overcome' your shallow arguments, I say I have. Others will judge. I am not interested in a panto exchange with your ridiculous non-scientific claims.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I have little interest regarding your dictated criteria that the English phrase 'unnecessary harm' HAS to follow. You use sweeping unscientific generalisation constantly, so you have demonstrated no ability to posit balanced arguments. You handwave away biological fact such as the reproductive imperative and try to convince others that the reproductive imperative in humans is no more powerful than mere whim.
That handwaving alone is enough evidence to condemn you as a pure sophist who is trying to peddle BS to avoid admitting that your antinatalism is based on limited illogical shallow thinking on your part.
Quoting schopenhauer1
There is no morality regarding a child before it is born. That which does not exist cannot have any moral aspect to it. This has been pointed out to you by many posters. This has not penetrated your foggy thinking yet!
Quoting schopenhauer1
He had to be born to make his argument, did he not? Just like you had to be born to make your dimwitted antinatalist arguments!
Quoting schopenhauer1
Antinatalism is a vile viewpoint. I offer no apology for any insult I have so far typed regarding your attempt to peddle it as valid. I think antinatalism is dimwitted and cowardly, that does not mean you are a complete dimwit and a total coward, just sometimes and only in my opinion based on your typings.
I am sure your opinion of me is not a flattering one. I don't care if you choose to express your disdain in the same way as I do or not. I leave it to the site moderators to raise a concern with me if they have any.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I agree if that's all they do is insult each other. I think your antinatalist arguments have been debunked and you are the one displaying the sour grapes. If you are a little timmy timid and you cant take any insults then perhaps you are correct and you should not respond to me anymore as you are perhaps too precious to not suffer due to your perception of my discourteous approach to your 'dialogue.'
Once more, you need to argue that newly created people are not undeserving of harm or that life does not visit undeserved harms on them. You have done neither of these things.
The origin of procreation has never been the problem. It is the procreation that is the problem, so this is just odd non-sequitor.
Quoting universeness
Huh? You have so many fallacies here I can't really be bothered to list them all but they include:
Causal fallacy or irrelevant conclusion (possibly also an attribution fallacy, strawman and red herring)- The question at hand is the moral question of what can deliberated upon regarding suffering, not the origin of "human suffering" in general. It's similar to attributing a murder to human evolution or compassionate act to human evolution.. the origin of the behavior is not the question at hand in this case, but the choice on whether to procreate.
Unnecessary ad hom- the argument is not valid or invalid because you think I'm a misanthrope or you have prescriptions for me.
Quoting universeness
Again, it's not about me, but I do eat mainly vegetarian and do care about animal welfare if that makes a difference.
This is not my argument, so I guess red herring.. but mainly out of your ignorance of my argument. If I had the means to stop a lion from eating a human (a weapon), yes I would because then I can deliberate, and in this case, the moral choice is on me. If I wasn't there, then there is no one to deliberate, and no moral decision can take place.
I see animal upon animal suffering as different precisely because it is non-deliberative actions.
Quoting universeness
Genetic fallacy and avoiding the issue- you don't like the source (me), so it must be wrong. But it's true, ad homs are considered not legitimate in good faith argumentation, because they detract from the argument. They are an act of desperation or embellishment, or appeals to emotion from the proverbial "crowd", or meant to throw someone off by making them angry or hurting their feelings.
Quoting universeness
Avoiding the question and argument out of indignity.. I presented to you a claim and you have yet to address it, mainly due to your disdain and appeals to indignity.
Quoting universeness
I was giving you what I meant by "unnecessary harms". My arguments earlier in the thread pointed out that by enacting such harms onto someone, it is a violation of their dignity. It is using them. All one has to agree on here is that there is a moral intuition to not cause unnecessary harm, agnostic of circumstance. I also explained how it is crucial to understand what is meant by unnecessary harms versus (possible) necessary harms, and what that means for the deliberative process.
Quoting universeness
Again, I see no scientific claim for your reproductive imperative. If it is so pervasive in scientific literature, show me the overwhelming evidence that this exists. Keep in mind though, I admitted that physical pleasure is generally selected for and correlated with procreation. Rather, I am refuting that the actual idea of "I want a baby/I want to reproduce" is an instinct.
Quoting universeness
There is a difference between things that aren't present and can never happen based on my actions (meeting a leprechaun) and things that aren't present but can definitely happen in the future based on my actions (procreation). Conflating the two is some kind of confusion of what is the case or simply a bad strawman.
Quoting universeness
Besides the obvious resorting to ad hom here.. This goes back to my example of the island. If a person is alone on an island, no morality comes into play. Once someone lands on the island, morality comes into play. Morality is not negated by there not being enough people on the island for morality to take place. Morality obtains when the conditions are around for morality to be in play.
Quoting universeness
Just opinion, not an argument.
Quoting universeness
Indeed, this is the kind of behavior unnecessary in a philosophy forum and leads to unnecessary and incessant trolling.
Quoting universeness
Displaying sour grapes? That would be like what you are doing.. A bunch of insults and crazy desperate blather.
Quoting universeness
Just stop being an asshole and argue your point. Otherwise you are right, you are not worth debating because most of it is rhetorical blather.
So you are unable to deliberate on the origin of human suffering, at least you are beginning to admit to your shortfalls. Some progress in that at least.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Human murder cannot occur if humans did not evolve Sherlock!
Quoting schopenhauer1
All that you are influences all that you type. Try to think like a grown-up man instead of a dimwitted brat, your brain will appreciate the revelation.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Suffering is suffering, try to understand that. Its the responsibility of all humans to help reduce all suffering. Just get on with doing that and you will become less useless than you are at present.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Only in your own head but I have in fact fully addressed your claims and have debunked them, despite your petted lip.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, it's ok, you have already revealed yourself as a tenderfoot, you don't have to keep crying in Latin.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I have no interest in educating you, do your own work!
Quoting schopenhauer1
What you don't get you fool is that there is no future under antinatalism, your cowardly solution to human suffering is to advocate for a purposeless universe. That logic is moronic.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, it just means that you get told some home truths regarding your shallow thinking. You assign yourself significance that you just don't possess.
Quoting schopenhauer1
As arse is a very good waste disposal system. It lets a person rid themselves of a lot of shit.
Perhaps that's why you type directly from it! Just trying to help you maintain your wish to cry Latin tears Timmy.
So the fact that almost every animal species has a 'mating season,' and humans are members of all animal species. for you, is not scientific evidence that procreation has a massive instinctive imperative.
The fact that humans in the past stole women from other tribes to grow their own tribe also should be handwaved away. The physical pleasure aspect is an attractor Sherlock, it's there to encourage procreation, the fact that sex feels good is why it's useful to the imperative of procreation. You need to learn more biology.
So, only AFTER a baby has been born then and not before. So as others have already pointed out to you in this thread. It's nonsense to suggest that it's immoral to have children as they are born innocent and then suffer because they cannot be born innocent if they are never born. So the 'innocence' point in the OP has already been debunked.
Your arguments regarding your conflated criteria for 'unnecessary harms' are utterly subjective and on a case-by-case basis, far too complicated and nuanced to be used as an argument for such a blunt dimwitted solution as antinatalism.
A forest fire could be labeled an unnecessary harm but after the fire, a lot of new growth occurs.
As I have told you many times your thinking is too shallow. You deserve every insult thrown at you as you will not accept scientific fact, you will still try to blunderbuss your way through because you are incapable of admitting you are completely wrong. You are a prideful idiot.
You should write stories based on dystopian futures, you would entertain many children and perhaps even give some jollies to the antinatalists. Are your fears not alleviated by future projections of humans living beyond our home planet or if we organise our living spaces and our ability to produce resources without destroying our ecology? I live in Scotland and we have many many uninhabited island spaces and in fact a lot of mainland space. Scotland is relatively empty and could support many more people imo.
Humans have to get their social and political practices correct. We have simply been unable to control the nefarious amongst us adequately so far. I personally think we do control them and bring them down more successfully that we have in the past. We still have some king-style creatures like Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un, but we just ended the political career of the clown BO JO in the UK so we can bring down the nefarious. We just have to learn how to prevent creatures like him or Trump gaining power in the first place. POWERFUL CHECKS AND BALANCES is what our human race needs not moronic antinatalism!
1. There's a certain limit to the number of peeps the Earth can support which is a polite way of saying if we don't act soon we'll become mass-murdering cannibals.
2. Look at the populatiom growth rate.
Question: When do we reach critical mass and set off pandemonium?
[s]The only[/s] One solution is to have 0 children or a maximum of 2 (China's one child policy is an examplar of how to deal with overpopulation).
Well, I certainly don't advocate for a continuous population explosion that is unsustainable but the goal of antinatalism is not population control. If it was, I would support it. It's goal is the extinction of all human life with the goal of ending all human suffering. A vile, insipid proposal IN MY OPINION.
There are certain proposals made by people that I find disgusting, fascism, superiority, eugenics, antinatalism etc. I will not be a hypocrite and pretend that I give any credence to such ideas.
Anyone who suggests such ideas have value is not someone I will be nice to when they try to support such ideas. Antinatalism has nothing to do with the need to control human population growth, it wishes to terminate all human existence based on stupid thinking.
Antinatalists are .............. You can add the biggest insult you can think of and it would probably fall short of my low opinion of the idea and the people who peddle it.
Point made, point taken. What I wanted to call people's attention to was that antinatalism isn't such a bad idea - it's a philosophy whose time will come in the next 3 - 5 decades when life will be hell (overcrowding, cut-throat competition, dog eat dog world. It's telling that these expressions are true even now, a time natalists say is not bad enough for antinatalism. Imagine the horrors coming down the pike :fear: :groan:)
At the risk of coming off as a fatalist, I'd say the extinction of the human race is a forgone conclusion - the writing's on the wall. The choices on offer are not do we want to survive or go extinct; au contraire they are how do we wanna go extinct - there's the easy way (antinatalism) and there's the hard way (crimes against humanity).
I hope you become more positive in your predictions of the future of our species.
You might be a happier person if you tackle your hopelessness in new ways.
Another hour will still pass, regardless of your decision to live through it with despair as your main companion or hope. Choose life, don't see life as a curse because despair will become all you are or ever will be.
I'm being realistic mon ami! You, on the other hand, don't seem to realize the full import of your statements - they're dangerous and you should be censored for the sake of our collective well-being! :snicker:
Well that just shows the wisdom of not giving you any censorship power.
My hope for your move away from accepting hour after hour of despair persists.
Misery loves company and you can find plenty of fellow desperados if you seek them out.
Btw I am also in earnest. I don't find any value in trying to embellish with French phrases but whatever floats your boat I suppose.
Antinatalism should be renamed as probeautitudonism and then perhaps it'll begin to make sense to natalists.
probeautitudonism! You heard it here first folks!!
It has the word 'tit' in it so perhaps it will be a hit for antinatalists. What does it mean you crazy druid? :joke:
On second thoughts, the fact it has the word 'tit' in it might put the antinatalists off as such words may invoke their natural instinctive imperative to procreate! :scream:
Um, that doesn't mean that you then put them in a situation of harm so that they can be in a situation whereby the offense can take place :roll:. I don't create an injustice so that injustice can be a "thing" for which I can violate.
Quoting universeness
You don't handle nuance well it seems, as you admit right here, so perhaps you shouldn't even touch that one as it might overcomplicate your mind. It's already been spewing out a lot of poorly worked out objections (if that's what they are).
Quoting universeness
For some reason you misapply moral decisions with natural occurrences. Unnecessary harms are obviously related to morality here. Just like the animal analogy you poorly used, this one doesn't work either. Rather, if YOU (someone) did something to another person to cause harm unnecessarily, that is what I am talking about. The context is ethics. Keep with it.
Quoting universeness
This is just stuff being said. You have not shown the supposedly overwhelming evidence for your claim about the IDEA of "I want a baby/I want to procreate" being an instinct.
Um Pocahontas, you suggest that they are in a situation of harm due to their birth and that there exists an intent behind that, which is BS. There is no such intent on the part of the parents or the universe. Misfortune can occur which the majority of parents will try to protect against. You claim their efforts are in vain and you suggest not being born at all is the only protection against 'harm,' which makes you an idiot in my view.
I recall member DA671 making great effort to get through your foggy thinking. He blew your shallow thinking out of the water and you simply could not handle it. Your pathetic petted lip was present in almost every tedious response you made to his posts regarding your antinatalism.
You did not learn then and you are not learning now because you seem to want to remain the fool on the hill.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Antinatalism is not a justified solution to the issue of human suffering so you advocate for injustice every time you propose antinatalism as the solution. You can run round and round your little hamster wheel as much as you like, you will still generate no power for your debunked arguments.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Is that your best fighting talk? What a powderpuff attack!
Quoting schopenhauer1
I am perfectly aware that this is your one trick pony but it's already been destroyed. If I harm others it is either deliberate, accidental or unintended consequential so not ever 'unnecessary,' such a term is only applicable to those who decide to judge and such judgements can be utterly rejected on an individual basis so it is completely subjective and AGAIN TOO WEAK to use as a justification for something as extreme and ridiculous as antinatalism. But I know you don't care about such truths you are too busy trying to stay on your hamster wheel.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, the problem is that your shallow thinking cannot perceive the relationships between them.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I told you already, I am not willing to re-educate you. Read some books about the powerful instinct to reproduce imprinted on all species by nature. If you won't accept the evolutionary/natural selection evidence or the behavioural evidence from observation past and present then your intellect is impotent.
Probably why you are so easily duped by dimwitted ideas like antinatalism.
But what do you make of the _fact_ that people are able to do so and do it?
How can we intelligibly talk about the _right_ to have children, when there is no instance that would grant or revoke that right; instead, people just do as they please (and many do have children)?
If you can do something (ie. if you're able to do something), this is already an indication that the universe works in such a way as to grant you that, ie. it gives you that "right". It is in the case of you wouldn't be able to do something that the question of whether you have the right to or not can be brought up.
The problem with the innocence of infants is that it doesn't last, it's corruptible, inherently so. It's not innocence proper, one that would last.
For your argument to work, the person would need to remain innocent, be incorruptible. Corruptible people get what they deserve.
Category error.. the universe of course can never have intent so a moot point.
I also never said the parents had such intent. YOU however, made the poor argument such that "If the person for which an injustice is to take place doesn't exist (yet), it is okay to cause the person to exist (otherwise there would be no injustice). I was explaining the error of this logic.
Quoting universeness
Rhetorical blather, as usual from you.
Quoting universeness
You speak like you have authority. It is indeed a hamster wheel to debate someone as yourself, I agree though.
Quoting universeness
I don't "need" fighting talk. I simply argue the case. Just unnecessary BS that you surround bad arguments with. I get why you might need to though yourself. You continue to poison the well.
Quoting universeness
Ethics is never fully agreed upon, so saying, "Not everyone agrees on X (abortion, eating meat, having children, business practices, etc. etc.)" is simply the nature of ethics, so this is pretending my case is any different because of your particular loathing of it.
But this judgement is made by the criteria that it seems morally wrong to choose for others what harms are acceptable to endure. If we knew that upon immediate birth every baby would be tortured, clearly we would think that act of putting someone in that situation is cruel and wrong. Just because "life itself" isn't an immediate clear torture, doesn't mean that the cumulative amount of harm that someone else will encounter in life is acceptable to create. You would like there to be special pleading due to your indignity and mantle of authority you take on.
Quoting universeness
Not at all. It is simply a category error I am pointing out. You're trying to make a distinction that makes no difference. It's like when someone says, "This isn't a natural source", and the other person says, "Even man-made things are natural because all matter is natural". There is definitely a distinction between human deliberative phenomena and phenomena that is not based on human deliberation. A lion eating another lion, or the mating instincts in most other animals are or liken to natural occurrences, not deliberative acts. And certainly the same as naturally occurring forest fires or whatever other natural occurrence you used.
Suppose there are only 2 cells (x, y) reproducing via mitosis. If the lifespan of a cell is t seconds and lineage x divides every m seconds and lineage y divides every n seconds such that m [math]\neq[/math] n. I'm sure a mathematician @jgill can work out what the values of t, m, n should be such that the total population of cells remain constant throughout. There's gotta be a formula at the very least.
:up: :100:
We are free to choose whether natalism or antinatalism since the moment children are no longer that important to maintain familiar economy!
Quoting Agent Smith
What?
:brow:
Because you continue to debate in this manner, I'm done. You've proven you're not worth the time to debate and this kind of hostility is arguing out of bad faith. Argument by insult is not philosophy. Shouldn't even be allowed on this forum actually.
I see you're not a fan of Trump and politicians like him. I am in agreement with you on that. However, these are exactly the kind of cry-baby like antics they do when dealing with people they disagree with.
Sophmoric argument.
Your vile antinatalism should not be allowed on this forum imo.
Go back and read your exchanges with @DA671. Keep reading them until his logic finally lifts the vile fog of antinatalism from your sad life. He is a much friendlier human being than I and he was able to tolerate the BS you type without losing his patience. Your antinatalism just bores me now. You are a little lost child.
Are you like his Shadow in Jungian terms? Youre the same person Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation? :lol:.
Quoting universeness
Yep maybe you are his Mr. Hyde, or just a groupie.
Quoting universeness
Im not here to bore or not bore you. Dont reply or comment if you dont have anything of substance to say about the subject, which you continually show, you dont.
I will reply or comment whenever I like. I have debunked your antinatalist viewpoint and will continue to do so, but you are mostly white noise now as you just engage in denial of truths. As an empty vessel, you will no doubt continue to make loud noises but I will leave you with your ever-decreasing circles.
You are delusional. I dont care about circles. Youre not on a mission. Youre not a white knight. Lay off the drugs (but do take your meds). Switch to decaf.
Did you type anything significant there? I tried to read it but all that came through was hisssssssssssss and crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Just keep reading your exchange with @DA671 He can save you!! :smile:
Ah maybe a sock puppet then
It's your hand, you may put it inside any sock you fancy!
Hssssssssssss, crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, bye!
I'm asking you what you make of the fact that people are able to procreate (some people, at least; the ability to procreate is not a given).
What moral implications does this fact have, according to you?
That's the problem with a lot of what posters are doing here. Let's analyze this a bit by discussing three things that humans can do:
1) Needing water.
2) Needing to take a shit
3) Wanting to procreate.
For 1, if a human goes without water for too long, humans will die. Maybe you can last 3 days or so. Presumably, if the person finds water in a state of severe hydration (even if dirty) that person will immediately want to drink it to slake their extreme thirst. This might be considered a sort of instinct for hydration.. Probably less deliberative in this scenario. Under normal circumstances though, it would be pretty easy to decide not to drink water for short periods of time.. Maybe there's only hose water, and you decide that later on, you will go to the faucet to get a drink... Either way, even though you can usually control your thirst, you can control when and where you get your water. But you definitely NEED water, or at least hydration of some sort (technically you can live on little water, and on liquids like soda, tea, coffee, juice, alcohol, etc. as it has some measure of water in it.. even some foods).
For 2, if a human doesn't take a shit for too long, they will eventually die (after a while). But a human can control when and where they shit.. However, the need to shit is usually a very immediate need and will be very uncomfortable if you don't do it soon after you feel the pangs of needing to take a shit. So, this is another thing you can control, but is also very much something that makes one uncomfortable if one doesn't do.. but can control to some measure.
For 3, there is nothing that makes it such that if you don't do it, you will die. There is no immediate physical pain or discomfort.. If anything it is psychological for people who prefer to have a child. And sex itself can be controlled and certainly people exist who don't engage with it at all. It is not necessary for survival.. As I stated earlier, in humans, it is much more to do with existential notions, cultural practices, and personal preference.
:pray: :rofl:
:clap: :up:
@schopenhauer1 Big whup! The already born suffer yet almost always do not suffer continuously or so acutely that they cannot also thrive (vide Laozi, Buddha, Epicurus-Lucretius, Seneca-Epictetus, Spinoza). If the already-born sufferers can thrive, then so can 'unborn sufferers'. :flower: Ethical concern, therefore, begins at birth not before conception. As I've pointed out elsewhere, schop1, anti-natalism unnecessarily harms those already born who are compelled by their (socio)biology drives insofar as the 'doctrine' is used to prevent or pressure them to not procreate. The anti-natalist, after all, is the fraternal twin of the anti-abortionist: both are pro-unborn the latter is not pro-child, however, whereas the former is not pro-already born. :death:
You think this is a justification for doing for unnecessarily putting people in harms way? And you can reference by what I mean by unnecessary.. but I'll give you it again..
1) It has to be on behalf of others...
2) Does not ameliorate a greater harm for a lesser harm (for that person being affected).
Already refuted that idea. There is a difference between something never being able to happen, and something that can definitely happen.
Quoting 180 Proof
Sociobiology here is a squishy term.. If you mean some sort of strict instinct, then you can reference my earlier post here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/717447
To my mind, only an EXISTING sufferer warrants ethical concern.
If you know at time X present, a person does not suffer Y, and at time X1 in the future, a person will suffer Y, I do not see why ethical concerns don't count for X1 in the future.
I don't see why either if what you mean by "a person" is an existing person.
I don't see what you don't see. A person does not exist at X time for Y suffering. But they will exist at X1 time for Y suffering. You know that Y suffering can be avoided at X1.
If an innocent person deserves to avoid suffering, they also deserve to experience happiness. Causing unnecessary harms to existing innocent sentient beings is indeed problematic (unless you can show that your actions were required for a greater good). However, considering that non-existent beings aren't in a state of affairs they prefer, if creating harms is bad, then bestowing positives can also be good.
People have needs, but people also experience satisfaction that has significant value.
The gulf between "will" and "do" can be quite wide ;)
However, if they will experience harms that must be prevented, they can also experience positives. I don't wish to start a train of repetition, so I shall stop here. I hope that you and the others here have been doing well.
You have not connected "no actual person" with "no moral concern". There will be an actual person. Yet, you never address that important point.
Yeah I know your position, and yeah lets not make this a repetition. You can at least teach your adherent over there a lesson in how to debate without flying off the (fuckn) handle.
1. Banning people or ideas isn't a solution and makes it seem like one doesn't have an adequate response to the position being put forwardand I firmly believe that there is a more than plausible response.
2. I don't think that your view is "vile". If the world had more people who cared more about reducing harms instead of being apathetic or inflicting it, perhaps we wouldn't even have to discuss this stuff. Progress can only occur if people are willing to work together.
Also, I hope that you have a nice day!
That's a good point.
:ok:
So there is not now an existing person who warrants moral concern, but only some hypothetical / imaginary inexistent person like e.g. Frodo Baggins. :roll:
So it looks like you are not making the distinction that I put forward earlier. See here again:
Quoting schopenhauer1
You've lost me.
I am sorry for being a bit unclear.
Yes. That's good. :up:
The potential for an awesome life has been extinguished, nipped in the bud?
Antinatalism is, at the end of the day, about the potential/possibility for/of a disastrous life.
[quote=Socrates][s]The unexamined[/s] life is not worth living.[/quote]
However, look at the potential for pain/unpleasantness/sorrow. If my 14 year old daughter wished to go out alone in a cougar/grizzly-infested woods, I'd object with every fiber of my being. You would too, oui monsieur?
Antinatalism argues along those lines - there's the potential for (great) harm if someone is brought into existence and it would be immoral to then, still, bring that someone into existence. The person is born just to suffer! Such a person would prefer never to have been born! Hence, antinatalism.
Too, it's not that we don't reason this way - the expressions "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure", "nip something in the bud", etc. offer ample proof.
:ok:
We all have a lot to learn but some are not willing to learn because they are ossified in their viewpoint, even if that viewpoint is unpalatable to any human capable of rational thought. YOU ARE 100% CORRECT, universal antinatalism is not a tenable position it is one of the most ridiculous, nasty, harmful suggestions I have ever heard posited by a thinking human.
It's not my fault you are rather sensitive. Never get into a debate face to face, with a group of average men in a pub about antinatalism. They would probably have you in tears in no time. REAL LIFE is not about walking around on your tippytoes scared to crack an eggshell! I find your antinatalist reasoning ridiculous and I find you are ossified on the subject and you won't listen to the correct points made by your dissenters here on this thread. @DA671 made an almost heroic attempt to maintain his tolerance of your arrogance when debating antinatalism with you on other threads but all you offered back was disrespect but when I give you a taste of your own medicine you start to moan about it! :lol:
Nastiness, sadly, exists in a lot of places. I've also seen people dismissing the suffering of others and calling them irrationally depressed simply for sharing their views. Without understanding and cooperation, betterment will remain elusive. Thank you for your reply!
I disagree because in the final analysis, for me, the single case of the person who honestly states on their deathbed that they have had a wonderful life and they would be happy to 'do it all again.' Outweighs the person or perhaps even persons who honestly state on their deathbed that they have had a terrible life and they are glad it's over. I am not sure if my opinion would become a numbers game with a cut-off point if reliable evidence was presented that the ratio of happy lives against horrible lives was 1:1000000 or such like then the ground beneath my position might well quake severely. I honestly think that would just drive home to me more that I must do more to alleviate suffering! I still would not advocate for such a ridiculous, vile (Sorry @DA671) solution as antinatalism.
I think folks like DA671 and many other posters here would be very stoic supporters and contributors in trying to alleviate the suffering of others. Antinatalists would end the 13.8 billion years of happenstance it took to create life and would claim that this is a morally sound position to have. I cannot overstate how ridiculous I think that logic is! Yet schopenhauer1 still wants me to be gentle with him. DA671 has tried that and continue's to and I DO admire that but I see little or no return for his efforts.
No worries, sir. The journey shall go on.
We may vary in our approach to dealing with an emotive topic such as antinatalism but I think we are at least both humanists who will do everything they can do to help alleviate suffering. I remain hopeful that when faced with a situation of humans suffering, when your personal involvement could help, then most people would help, including @schopenhauer1 and @Bartricks
Quoting universeness
This doesn't feel right to me.
What about if a city's constant state of serenity and splendor requires that a single unfortunate child be kept in perpetual filth, darkness, and misery.
Even further to finding this acceptable, your position suggests that even if there were more suffering children than inhabitants of the city, you could find that acceptable too?
I should have made my position clearer.
The city scenario you gave and the ratio you gave of sufferers to inhabitants would be two situations I would be compelled to fight against and alleviate. The point I was making is that neither situation you described are reasons to invoke antinatalism and end all future life in both scenarios.
It's dimwitted to end all suffering by refusing existence to all life.
I was not typing about individual judgments about how smart someone is. You keep typing about responsible procreation and sensible population control and that life can be tough. I have agreed with all such observations and warnings but you dilute the true intentions of antinatalism. It is not about population control or making smart wise decisions about when you should reproduce. The claim is that it is immoral to EVER reproduce, regardless of your circumstances. The antinatalist cure for all suffering is the nonexistence of any life. Don't minimise that ridiculous viewpoint by trying to dilute its malevolence.
How does this argument not then turn into a moral imperative to create as many new persons as possible?
Honestly, I think the way this thread is going is the wrong way to approach antinatalism.
The issue raised is unmistakenly a moral one, and moral problems must be dealt with on the level of moral agents, ergo individual choices. Any attempts at generalizing or externalizing moral issues fall flat.
In the case of two persons deciding they wish to have a child, it is between them and their future child.
The simple question is, where do they get the right to make such a monumental and potentially disastrous decision on behalf of someone else?
Intuition speaks clearly here - should I push someone out of an airplane when I know there's a ten percent chance their parachute doesn't open, a ninety percentage chance that it does open and a fifty percent chance that they enjoy the experience?
The answer is clearly no. You should not push someone out of an airplane. Why not? Because such is not your risk to take. What makes child-having different?
Let's use antinatalism, it's existence, as some kind indicator/sign/marker that all is not right with the world. Just like how a sad face at a party should warn the host & other revellers that something's not quite right.
Because we can be smarter than that. We can have sensible population control methods and develop better, fairer socio/political systems and better technologies to create the basic resources needed to offer every human a fully provisioned life from cradle to grave as an unassailable right. The suffering that antinatalists complain about would be reduced. Technical advances in transhumanism also offers a path to enhancing the robustness of humans and the longevity of their lifespans, offering more choice.
Quoting Tzeentch
The difference is that following the antinatalist suggestion means extinction for our species.
Human suffering is an issue that humans have to deal with just like having to deal with not knowing why we are here and what our ultimate purpose is. We also have to deal with the knowledge that we will die but we are NOT ALONE, We can comfort, love, encourage, share, laugh, learn, change, grow, experience, ask questions, cry, complain, ask for help, give help etc etc.
What a wonderful life! If antinatalism made any sense then the 'smart' ancients would never have left their caves. Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis or the Neandertals would most likely have become the dominant species on this planet rather than the homo sapiens. Perhaps they would also have debated the folly of antinatalism as well, I personally think the majority of them would reject the dimwitted proposal as well.
I prefer to use it as a measure of how misanthropic some humans can become.
Let's lay some responsibility for pessimism onto the pessimist. I ABSOLUTELY AGREE that this does not mean we can ignore the person at the party with the sad face. I have encountered such many many times and I will be one of those who try to cheer them up but sometimes your offers of help are soundly rejected. It's all very complicated. We can only keep trying to make things better for everyone.
@DA671 said it simply as, Quoting DA671
and it will be ever thus until we do go extinct or the universe ends, whichever comes first.
After that, the Penrose bounce and CCC may prove true and then 'here we (or something like us) go again! Yeehaa!'
:clap: I think it's a lot more than a lot. I often complain with the words '10,000 years of tears,' and these are valid words when it comes to what we could have achieved by now if we had united and killed the first nefarious b****** that declared himself King. BUT we have learned much about the nefarious since then no matter what robes of authority they wear or even if they appear to be your best friend!
We are still here and we are millions and we will get it right in the end.
We have been slaughtered for centuries but we are still here because those who reproduce allow good principles to endure. Antinatalism would utterly waste all the good progress that has been made alongside those 10000 years of tears!
It's certainly a monumental decision. Whilst I agree that it can be a disastrous one, it can also be one that results in joys that many would consider to be miraculously powerful and beautiful. If suffering matters, then so do the positives.
I don't believe that there are souls floating around in the void who have an interest in not existing that we are ignoring by creating them and deciding on "their" behalf. However, if it's bad to create harms that one didn't ask for, it's also good to bestow positives that one couldn't have asked for prior to their existence.
That analogy doesn't exactly work with procreation. Most people would probably have a strong interest in not being pushed against their will which we would be disregarding by pushing them. Taking unnecessary risks isn't good for existing beings, since they are probably already satisfied to an adequate degree. Therefore, harms are only required if they can bring about a greater good. But because non-existent beings aren't in some state of affairs they prefer, avoiding risks isn't more important than creating opportunities for positives. Saving someone is good even if there's a small chance they would dislike it. If this analogy doesn't work, then I believe that neither does the one about needlessly pushing someone.
Many things could make it different. I would imagine that most sentient beings can live decent lives without having an unbearable desire to push someone. However, creating new life can contribute to the manifestation of inestimable happiness in the lives of countless individuals. Since there doesn't seem to be a good alternative to this that everybody likes, the absence of this good could cause significant misery. Furthermore, I don't see any ethical problem with creating positives on the basis of reasonable probabilities. If this isn't our risk to take, then neither is it our opportunity to prevent.
Having said that, I do believe that procreation cannot be taken lightly. The world clearly has a lot of issues that we need to focus on fixing before mindlessly procreating. I am reasonably optimistic that we will overcome our problems (provided we don't let unmitigated competition, pessimism, and greed blind us). I hope that you have a wonderful day ahead!
:up: :pray:
Quoting universeness
Mental gymnastics?
If you're not interested in the moral argument then that is fine, but obviously any moral argument put forward should be sound.
If one believes as long as the ratio of happy to unhappy lives isn't getting close to 1:1000,000, then I guess you have a lot of work to do. Or did I miss the part where a million people's suffering is worth a single person's happiness, but your own convenience is not?
Quoting universeness
And if people were to do that by their own voluntary will, why would that be a problem? Should they be morally compelled to prolong the species*, and if so, on what basis?
Not that there's any real danger of the entirety of mankind suddenly seeing the light. If there's anything humanity has never had a shortage of it's unthinking procreators.
Quoting universeness
We don't 'have' to continue that cycle, so we don't 'have' to suffer, unless one believes the human endeavor is one that needs to be prolonged at any cost. But suffering isn't at the base of my argument.
Quoting universeness
I'm glad you feel that way. There's also a lot of misery though. There are many individuals who don't feel comforted, loved, encouraged, etc. They are alone, and sadly, they are many. Withering away, some even broken by the very parents that made the choice to have them in the first place.
On what basis do you believe these people are living "a wonderful life" - and do you believe they would agree with you? Did their parents have a right to saddle them with this fate?
My central question remains unanswered:
Quoting Tzeentch
* Something which is an effort in vain to begin with. Just like death is inevitable, so is the eventual extinction of the human species. If you're of the opinion that all moral boundaries should be thrown overboard in order to prolong it I would disagree wholeheartedly.
Extreme thought experiments can be found everywhere. Negative utilitarians who focus on suffering have to show why it wouldn't be better to take the happiness of many in order to alleviate the greater suffering of a few. I think that a balanced perspective is better. As I said before, trying to do too much good can be impractical and counterproductive.
As far as preserving happiness is concerned, I don't think that it would be ethical to allow innumerable people to suffer just for the sake of the happiness of a single person. However, due to the fact that most people do seem to cherish their lives (and optimism isn't inherently bad as long as it doesn't affect our overall analysis), I believe that it wouldn't be good to cease/prevent all the positives. My pain doesnt negate the value of the positives experienced by your or someone else (even though it might sometimes be difficult for me to accept this idea at an emotional level).
I and many other individuals believe that life is worth continuing. The pursuit of knowledge, love, and beauty are all sources of imperishable hope and joy. However, I don't think that anybody should be forced to procreate. If suffering provides us a basis to end everything, then happiness (which often persists despite of harms) gives us a strong reason to not so.
I agree that unthinking procreation is a big problem. Although, unthinking pessimism could also be an issue (not saying that this is an issue for you).
I agree that there is terrible suffering in the world suffering we cannot afford to ignore. Yet, there are also those who discover great satisfaction in their lives despite suffering a lot. There are monks who calmly sit whilst being on fire, kids in slums who are happy simply by virtue of being with their families, and people gaining happiness from helping others. Not bestowing this good doesn't seem ethically defensible.
If you ignore :point: :sad: then, all you have are guilty pleasures - the proverbial fly in the ointment, oui monsieur? The flags in the US & India of all places are flying at half-mast to mourn Shinzo Abe's death.
Well, in that case a one-sided portrayal of all that is positive also will not suffice.
Not only is there a lot of suffering in the world, there are also a lot of immoral people, all of which were birthed and raised because their parents felt they had the right to do so.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and all the people that followed them, were all two people's gift to humanity. What right did those parents have? Because they were ignorant to the consequences of their actions? Ignorance cannot function as a justifcation, though perhaps it can lessen their blame.
Quoting DA671
This is a flimsy shield.
One ought to take into account the consequences for one's actions, and if the consequence of one's action is the birth of another individual, one should take into account that individual's behalf before one acts.
We do this on moral grounds all the time, especially in regards to childbirth.
The central question wasn't answered:
Quoting Tzeentch
Perhaps by what you've said, I should assume you would in fact not consider it immoral to push someone out of an airplane under the conditions I listed? It would certainly be a first that someone is willing to take that position!
Quoting DA671
Something is in vain if it's goal (the 'survival of the human species') is fundamentally unachievable.
Quoting DA671
Why should the fact that many people enjoy their lives give them a right to impose it on others?
A few big drops cannot annihilate billions of other ones, even if they are smaller (and here, we are going to simply ignore Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Albert Einstein, etc.). If one knows that their action would cause more harm than good, then it would obviously be wrong to go ahead and act in that manner anyway. However, since we don't know for sure, one has to act on the basis of reasonable probabilities. A one-sided assessment that doesn't recognise the power of the positives doesn't seem right. Of course, toxic positivity is also problematic.
The armour can be broken silently. If the "consequences" do not improve/worsen a person's well-being, they cannot be better or worse for someone. Nevertheless, I am willing to accept that they can be bad. But if they can be bad, they can also be good.
The central question was answered but I think that you missed my reply. It's also possible that I wasn't clear enough, in which case I sincerely apologise. As I already said, one has to act on the basis of reasonable probabilities. From what we know, most existing people have an interest in not being pushed without their consent from a plane. There might be a small chance that this person would be terrible sad if they weren't pushed, but since this is highly unlikely, it would be better to not push the person. When it comes to non-existent people, however, one has to keep in mind that they don't have a prior desire to avoid existence that we would be failing to satisfy by creating them. What we do know is that, in spite of everything, the majority of people do seem to prefer existence.
It's only vain if the goal is: "survival of the species for eternity." I disagree with this need for absolute perfection. Just as we don't need suffering to be permanent for it to be better off being prevented, we don't need total happiness for it to possess immense value as long as it can exist. Unrealistic expectations cause unnecessary suffering.
I hope that you have a good day!
Being born clearly is an imposition by the parents on the child.
If such a monumental imposition is morally permissible, then on what basis can be said that other impositions aren't permissable?
Quoting DA671
I disagree, and here's why:
We cannot hide behind probability. It would mean nothing other than playing dice with other people's well-being. Probability simply hides ignorance. An attempt to appeal to probability is simply a concession that not only is one imposing, one is imposing in ignorance.
And that's exactly so! Because no parent has the ability to foresee the consequences their actions will have on the child or on other people.
You state that one has to act. I disagree. Not acting ignorantly on the behalf of others is much better.
Along the lines of, before one seeks to do good unto others, ensure one isn't doing harm, because no one is forcing you to get involved in the first place. A solid guide to moral behavior in virtually any other circumstance, and only contested here because we're predisposed to like the idea of having children.
Quoting universeness
Is it really that bad for someone to say that they wish the city did not exist in the first place?
Some antinatalists are our socialist brothers. @Bartricks is in support of a Universal Basic Income.
:snicker: An ol' gem of wisdom! Who listens though, eh?
I disagree with that. One cannot simply prevent all positives due to the mere possibility of negatives (unless they can show that this would conserve/increase happiness somewhere else). If not "imposing" is good, then not bestowing happiness is quite problematic.
One cannot guarantee that there wouldn't be any positive in the future either. Blind pessimism cannot nullify the value of the positives.
Inaction that leads to the end of all happiness is not justifiable, in my view. If anything, it tragically falls prey to the same ignorance it is desperately trying to avoid.
Causing unnecessary harms to existing people who are already satisfied to an adequate degree and don't require constant risky intervention for happiness is indeed wrong. Fortunately, non-existent beings have no desire to avoid existence, which is why there is no good reason to focus on merely preventing harms.
Have a pleasant day!
You are not worth discussing anything. You make poor arguments and have nothing of substance. You are a belligerent asshole that just poisons the well. Just make your pint. No need for the ravings in a civil debate. This is a philosophy forum if you cant handle foreign ideas, pick a different hobby. Youre on ignore. Go blather to others. My patience is about done dealing with you.
Why not? Why wouldnt you be able to not create an occurrence in the future that you know could happen to someone. Do you not believe in future states?
Excellent point and also kind of speaks to my point to @180 Proof.
Quoting Tzeentch
Another point that Ive been trying to make myself over and over. I call this idea of presumptive imposition on others aggressive paternalism and its a sort of attitude that one can and should make presumptive decisions for others as to how much harm is acceptable not to mention that they cant predict unforeseeable harms.
An imposition means to force something on another.
By being born something (life) is being forced (the physical act of birth, to which a child cannot resist nor consent) on another (the child).
Which part of this do you not agree with?
Quoting DA671
What we call it does not change the nature of the act.
A gift can be an imposition too, and before one gives someone a 'gift', isn't one morally obliged to ensure this gift does not hurt the recipient?
If one pushes someone out of a plane but their parachute doesn't open, could one justify themselves on the basis of what you've put forward? I think not. Giving gifts can be immoral too, regardless of its benevolent intention.
Quoting DA671
Apart from those responsibilities that one has taken upon themselves by their voluntary action, I think inaction is always morally permissable. That is to say, if one's inaction prevents good from happening, then that is not immoral. As such, in the face of overwhelming uncertainty it may be better not to act.
A view within which 'not doing good' is immoral would require everyone to spend their every waking moment doing all the good they possibly can. What sinful creatures we would be, indeed.
Agressive pessimism that prevents the bestowal of cherished experiences is hardly any better. It paternalistically declares that all the positives that do exist would have better off not existing if this meant that the negatives would also have been averted.
It's not relevant.
"Future states" of what?
A person who would suffer if you did X.
If a gift is seen as an imposition, it isn't a real gift. One cannot say on the basis of their own subjective experience that preventing the negative aspects should matter more when it comes to another person rather than ensuring that they get the positive ones.
Creating positives is good (if creating suffering is bad). Pushing someone has almost no probability of being good for them.
Since I don't think that non-existence is better or worse than existence, I would agree that inaction wouldn't necessarily be bad. However, if it can be bad to create harms (and it's neutral to not do so), then one should prefer creating goods (instead of maintaining a neutral state of affairs). If it's good to prevent harms, then it is bad to prevent happiness.
As I've said ad nauseam, trying to do too much good isn't always possible and can even cause more suffering if it is forced. One has to take the greater good into account. Some good is better than nothing.
No thats not how our language works. Unlike Frodo baggins who can never exist, a child can if certain actions are taken. That future possibility is being not actualized due to the suffering that would occur.
Sounds pretty interesting, to be honest!
Clearly there is a being who is being forced. At the point of birth I don't think you can dispute that anymore.
And while we know little about a baby's desires since they're not yet capable of expressing them, they're clearly conscious and have little wills of their own. So again, there's an imposition based on a fundamental ignorance here that I don't think you can avoid.
Quoting DA671
Certainly. But how does one know beforehand? And if one conceeds that one doens't know beforehand, how does one justify going ahead with it anyway, knowing the dire consequences one's actions may have, however benevolent the intentions?
:wink:
Since we don't have any reason to think that the baby had a desire to avoid existence, trying to prevent the bestowal of all good seems like a result of pessimistic projection that's driven by a limited understanding of the good.
One does know that most people do seem to cherish their lives despite the harms they face. If one doesn't know that the negatives won't necessarily outweigh the positives, then preventing all of them cannot be given approbation.
Someone is clearly being forced. Whether it's against their will is unknowable. So I don't know how you can say that is "indisputable". I'm disputing it, certainly.
Quoting DA671
It's not up to you decide what is "clearly" good for someone else, and then simply impose it on them.
To a non-trivial amount of people life is not a welcome gift. Ergo, their parachute didn't open. And they were pushed, without their consent, into an abyss of suffering. It's clearly immoral.
The question is, given the fact that we do not know the status of the parachute before the imposition, is it ever morally justifiable to make that imposition.
Quoting DA671
That some people, luckily, enjoy the experience is not sufficient reason to justify the whole ordeal. That would be like accepting those people who come to suffer and not enjoy life as sacrifical lambs. I don't see how that can be morally justifiable.
It's also not for someone else to decide that not creating any positive is ethically justifiable. It's neutral at best (when it comes to non-existent beings). However, it can cause sadness to those who do exist.
Any amount of suffering is deeply tragic. Still, the happiness of the child in the slum, the joy that many people experience in spite of suffering is not worthless and cannot be forgotten. The question is: can a pessimistic projection justify the prevention of countless bestowal of positives? I believe that the answer isn't affirmative.
My suffering cannot negate your happiness. The fact that there is suffering is a reason we need to act immediately to reduce it. However, doing so at the cost of causing misery to existing people/preventing all happiness cannot be accepted. The good cannot be sacrificed on the altar of unbridled pessimism.
Associating my mental prowess with the physical prowess of a gymnast is fine. If you are suggesting that I am contorting truths then I think you are wrong and you are the one who is twisting around.
Quoting Tzeentch
If you read what I typed you would see that I suggested such a ratio would be of great concern IF TRUE but I typed that even if it was true, the solution is not antinatalism, it is the 'lot of work to do' that we would all be responsible for.
Quoting Tzeentch
Oh I have no problem with that, I merely ridicule the suggestion that such consent will ever be given by all humans that exist. Antinatalism is therefore a dimwitted forlorn proposal and a completely pointless suggestion.
Quoting Tzeentch
You are correct, there is no danger of the human race voting for their own extinction as they are capable of rational thinking.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes, I would broadly agree with that as it took 13.8 billion years of happenstance to produce us, so let's try to figure out why before we decide to vote for extinction. Let's not surrender because we were too scared to live or exist.
Quoting Tzeentch
Do what you can to help!
Quoting Tzeentch
I have met many people who have told me so. I am such a person so I am living a happy life, as are others on his forum as are many/most members of my immediate family as are most of my friends. There are many many life celebrants out there! Regardless of their personal struggles and suffrage.
The human experience has not left me a broken misanthrope. I love life and would find life pointless if comparators did not exist. I must know what pain is to appreciate pleasure.
It is the responsibility of humans to prevent extremities of suffering, unjustified suffering, immoral suffering but none of these are well defined by those who peddle antinatalism.
Quoting Tzeentch
I disagree and would say further that if humans don't reproduce then their purpose in the universe will never be known as they will go extinct and no more questions can be asked or answered and that means the universe will have no purpose which in my opinion, is an unforgivable harm.
Where do you get the right to suggest that the existence of life is immoral due to the possibility of suffering or whatever else you think is a logical reason to support the antinatalist viewpoint.
The universe does not have any known moral imperatives. Humans invented moral imperatives.
Quoting Tzeentch
Transhumanism may make death less inevitable in the future. Let's wait another few million years at least or perhaps at least 100 million years and then see what the human race is like. That's not very long when you consider the cosmic calendar.
Aw didums! :lol: :rofl:
Quoting universeness
That apparently even by your own estimation we're only talking about a relatively small number of people making voluntary decisions, does little to explain your defensiveness.
I'm only interested in the question whether it is moral to birth individuals into this world. What people do with the answer is up to them and not my business.
Quoting universeness
Humans that proclaim to be heavily invested in the "survival of the human race" - something they hold no rational stake in, nor influence over - cannot be said to be rational.
Quoting universeness
I'm not voting for anything, nor am I telling anyone what to do - I'm just laying out an argument. Apparently you find that very threatening.
Quoting Tzeentch
Quoting universeness
Ok! But being a good person has nothing to do with whether child birth is moral or not!
Quoting Tzeentch
Quoting universeness
I was speaking specifically of people who are suffering harshly, whether it's physical, mental, emotional.
People who by their own account would rather die than live.
On what basis are you claiming they are living a wonderful life?
Quoting Tzeentch
Quoting universeness
That's not an answer to the question. That's dodging the question.
Quoting universeness
You must present my position fairly. I did not say existence is immoral. I said the birthing of children is immoral.
And I do so on the basis of the fact that it is immoral to impose such monumental and potentially grave conditions on someone without knowing whether they consent.
In the case of an unborn child, gaining consent is impossible, so birthing the child is akin to taking a gamble with someone else's life (aka pushing someone out of an airplane knowing their parachute has a ten percent chance of failing). Something for which I can find no moral justification.
Quoting universeness
Yet all of us seem to agree that certain things are wrong. Things that involve doing things to other people without their consent. Rape, murder, that sort of thing.
It's just a matter of applying these principles consistently and we come to the conclusion that forcing people to live is wrong not because we want it to be wrong, but because the consistent application of logic dictates it.
Why destroy everyone in the city if you could save them, even if it takes a long long time to achieve it. It's like the Sodom and Gomorrah biblical fables. Those dimwitted angels and the dimwitted god that sent them caused the death of everyone in both cities, when all they had to do was appear, demonstrate their power, educate those who did not understand the folly of their ways and they could have improved the lives of everyone in both cities and perhaps their progeny would have been very nice people.
If Barticks is a socialist who supports UBI then I would call him a brother in that sense. I would still argue with him until the universe ends that his support of antinatalism is misguided.
I have probably argued with more socialist brothers on many many issues that I have argued with capitalists or theists. Socialists/humanists must argue with each other as they care about getting things correct. Capitalists just care about themselves and those they care about. They all agree on one main policy. 'Lets make as much money as we can out of the majority by any means possible!' and theists just scapegoat their god and take no responsibility for anything.
No.
If for whatever reason it could be accertained beforehand that a pregnancy would result in a child with deficiences (because of incest for example), the choice to get pregnant anyway is clearly an imposition. An imposition of those deficiences onto the child. Whether the child is not yet in existence is irrelevant. We know it will come into existence by our actions, and we know the consequences it will have.
Quoting DA671
Indeed. Inaction is always neutral, except under the conditions I specified.
Quoting DA671
Quoting DA671
If you read my argument carefully you will see I am not making a pessimistic argument at all.
I'm making the argument that we're fundamentally ignorant to the results of our actions, those actions will have monumental consequences for another living being, and thus our actions are irresponsible - immoral.
Not only that, but the parents are also largely powerless over the well-being of their child! So however benevolent their intentions and however good their capabilities as parents, much of it is out of their control.
One cannot make justifiable decisions on someone else's behalf when one is ignorant of the outcomes and largely powerless over the course of events.
We might believe a lot of things because they appear to be intuitive. However, they might not be necessarily. I don't see how an act that doesn't decrease a person's well-being and doesn't go against their interests can be an imposition. But, assuming it can be, then creating a life wherein one would likely experience many positives they would cherish forever is good and a better option than not doing anything. The risks matter, but so do the opportunities.
Positive actions are better than inaction.
Your argument is a pessimistic one, since it essentially says that the opportunities for the positives don't matter sufficiently to justify creating them.
If we truly don't know (which isn't true, since we know that most people do appreciate their lives and the conditions one is born in also affects the sort of life they would have), then choosing to simply focus on preventing potential risks whilst ignoring the good that could exist doesn't make sense to me. I suppose we have different intuitions here. From my point of view, it isn't immoral.
Parents can play a substantial role in giving their children good life skills and the ability to face challenges. Not everyone desires or needs total control in order to live a life they mostly value.
You are probably right that I am smashing a small nut with a large sledgehammer. Perhaps I am being over cautious or perhaps I am just future-proofing on behalf of all responsible natalists.
Quoting Tzeentch
No not threatening, I just find antinatalism a vile idea, in the same way I find most extremely fringe views quite disturbing. There are some antinatalists who do not seek consent. I have not encountered them but @DA671 has. If I am wrong about that then I am sure he will correct me. That would be my main concern however. Those who peddle antinatalism may well create a variety that does not require consent and then we could have nonsense like 'harm for the purpose of ending all suffering.'
Do you not have any concern for this possibility?
Quoting Tzeentch
Are you deciding for me that I have no rational stake in the survival of the human race?
If I say I think the human race has a vital role to play in the universe and its survival is essential to the purpose of the universe, do you simply handwave that away, not matter how much I protest?
Quoting Tzeentch
We seem to be talking past each other here. I was not suggesting that everyone is living a wonderful life or people who say they are having a terrible life are secretly having a wonderful one. I was suggesting that those who are not having a wonderful life does not provide sufficient reason to support antinatalism.
I support human euthanasia if they are in a state of terminal suffering and you have their consent.
Quoting Tzeentch
You are hairsplitting. The latter causes the former or are you saying that the immorality of the parents end once the child is born?
Deciding not to push a parachutist out of a plane is not comparable with ignoring the instinctive imperative to have children. As I have said many times. Many people would be greatly harmed if they could not have children. Some would feel utterly incomplete without children and would not see any point to the future without them. Do you wish to suggest to such people that they are immoral to want children? I would suggest your health would be in danger if you try to, face to face.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes, humans can agree/disagree on such.
Quoting Tzeentch
No, we are not forcing people to live we are allowing new life to be born and the species to continue as an instinctive imperative that took 13.8 billion years to develop.
2. https://youtu.be/KdS6ZTSPkFg
Warning: It's not pleasant. Also, most moderate AN supporters don't agree with philosophy. In fact, the person who made the compilation and the other video actually is an antinatalist. Nevertheless, considering that one of these people runs an organisation called Antinatalism International and a famous podcast called the Exploring Antinatalism podcast, I think it would be worth pondering what one could do in the name of AN.
Hi, sorry for buttin' in like this, but have a dekko at the list below - destinations (for souls) in order of preference:
1. Jannat (Paradise)
2. Duniya (Earth)
3. Jahanam (Hell)
We're right smack in the middle - there's room for improvement (1, ergo antinatalism) but things could be worse (3, ergo natalism). Earth's not great, but it's not that bad either!
Anyway, you're right about us not knowing what lies in the future of children, yours, mine, anyone's. We can't offer any guarantees regarding their well-being.
Now imagine if someone were to tell me that visiting a country x could be loads of fun OR you could end up hanged, drawn and quartered, the chances being, to be fair, 50/50. Would you plan a family holiday in country x? You wouldn't! Hence antinatalism
Ergo, not antinatalism!
Looks like my concerns are not unreasonable. I wouldn't like her as a neighbour!
Let's see if the antinatalists around this thread will watch and comment on the vid you link to. I hope they do better than 'well, you always get crazies!'
I watched about 6 mins of it then had enough. This is always the problem, extreme viewpoints like antinatalism, attracts some seriously disturbed individuals. These creatures are not like any of the people I have clashed with on this thread I assume but they should watch it and understand the cautionary message it suggests. Hopefully the American authorities are keeping tabs on them otherwise I am sure they will appear on CNN in the future having committed some heinous act that they attempt to justify using some variety of the relatively harmless antinatalist reasoning typed on this thread.
Yes. You objectively have no rational stake in the survival of the human race.
It will survive with you, or without you, and none of us will be around to see it perish, if it does, but as time goes on it's exceedingly likely that it will.
Quoting universeness
I would say that's a wonderful idea, yet one that doesn't escape the cold logic that I just laid out.
It's no different from being emotionally invested in your favorite sports team. No matter how hard you shout and cheer, your impact on the outcome is negligible. Though arguably cheering for one's favorite sports team has more impact than cheering for the human race.
Quoting Tzeentch
Quoting universeness
No, these two things are fundamentally different.
Existing is obviously not immoral.
Thrusting people into existence is immoral, but once people are in existence they're there and it's an entirely different situation.
Quoting universeness
For the most part, yes. After the child is born it's a new situation. The parents have made a moral error, and now it's their responsibility to make the best of it.
Quoting universeness
I've never heard the term 'instinctive imperative' before, but I don't believe instincts form a good guide for moral behavior, nor do they justify behavior.
We scrutinize individual behaviors through the lens of reason. That's how we evaluate the morality of certain behavior, with things like law.
If humans want to appeal to instincts to excuse their reckless behavior they're essentially saying "I'm an animal" - then they'll be treated as such. That's not to say we can be cruel to them, but I wouldn't have philosophical conversations with my dog either.
Needless to say, such arguments sound like an intellectual concession of defeat and I don't find them very compelling.
Quoting universeness
Children shouldn't be used to fill a void. That's a burden no child should have to bear.
I'm not here to judge people, and I won't. All I'll say is that by my argument having children under such conditions would be an immoral choice. What they do with this is up to them.
And if that makes people violent, I would read that as simple fear that I am right.
Quoting universeness
Potatoe, potatoe.
Quoting universeness
The 'species' is simply a conglomerate of individuals, and I believe the value of humanity, if indeed it can be said to have any value, lies in the moral behavior of each individual.
If mankind cannot develop or continue to exist morally, I don't see why it should at all. But I'm not interested in such things. I try to live my life morally, and nothing more. That's why I test my ideas in the crucible of free discourse. Not to convince anyone or to judge anyone.
But it won't survive without everyone!
Quoting Tzeentch
Again absolutely untrue a crowd often inspires their team to beat the other team.
Quoting Tzeentch
Ok, then you can wag your finger disapprovingly if you wish and then welcome all the babies as they arrive.
Quoting Tzeentch
They are not filling a void they are becoming a sentient lifeform and fulfilling a natural evolutionary imperative in their parents and you handwave away the pain it would cause them if they were childless based on what YOU think is morally sound. You hold a tiny minority opinion and in my opinion a disturbing one.
Quoting Tzeentch
Watch the clips that @DA671 posted above and comment, they are not long clips.
You are not everyone, nor do you have any influence on everyone.
Quoting universeness
Doubtful. Why do so many fanatical sports fans get so mad when their team loses? Because they are powerless. They're invested in something they have no power over.
It's bad for you. Better to invest that energy in things you have real power over, like being a good person in every day life.
Quoting universeness
Those were your words, not mine.
Quoting universeness
I don't handwave anyone's pain. But pain is no excuse to act immorally, and that's why I cannot accept what you gave as a justification.
Quoting universeness
No thanks. Ten seconds in and it doesn't seem worth the time or the brain cells. If there's something specific you want me to engage with you'll have to write it here.
End of our exchange then! I am glad I am not infected by antinatalism and I am immune.
No doubt some of the crazies who jump on its coattails will cause some horror somewhere sometimes in the future but they will get no further.
I was born innocent too. There have been many harms in my life like with any life. But I love life and continue to prefer being here to the alternative. Im glad I got the opportunity. I still had to think about having kids but not using the fact that they will not live a harm-free life as a criterion.
Whats so terrible about suffering and harm and pain? Its part of life, and without it thered be pure boredom.
Im glad I was born, and glad Ive been lucky enough to experience some pain and suffering but also joy and pleasure.
Your position betrays a pessimistic view of life. Im not sure if using pessimism to justify not having children is all that new, incidentally.
:clap: :up:
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
Quoting universeness
Well it wouldn't be destroying the city, it would be not building the city in the first place.
Even if you think it's okay to build the city, surely you can understand people thinking it shouldn't be built?
Quoting universeness
The woman in the video is arguing for efilism to dominate antinatalism and be the "last act standing". This is the difference between not building the city and destroying the city.
I do accept the slippery slope point about antinatalist belief, however this does not answer the question of whether it is moral to build such a city. I know both @schopenhauer1 and @Bartricks have said that they are in favour of not building but are opposed to destroying.
Quoting universeness
Comrade @Bartricks indeed.
Yes you can expect to get more sense from the socialist, so it's actually worth arguing. My lefty politics are what I'm passionate about, but I do sympathise with anti-natalism.
The argument you've addressed is this one:
Xtrix is unhappy and doesn't like his/her life and therefore procreation is in general wrong.
That's an incredibly dumb argument that is not in the OP.
Logic from Xtrix and universenes:
If p, then q; not p, therefore not q.
I didn't make that argument, nor did I say you made that argument. I'll quote myself:
Quoting Xtrix
This is addressing your argument.
All people (including me, as mentioned above) were born innocent. All people suffer in life to some degree. Suffering is part of life. Pain is part of life.
So the argument goes:
(1) All people are born innocent.
(2) Innocent people deserve no harm (which perhaps you can define further, but I view as "suffering").
(3) Life inevitably includes harm/suffering.
(4) Thus, bringing innocent lives into the world when you know they will suffer is unjust/morally wrong.
If you mean something different when you say "harm," fine -- but that needs clarification.
What I'm saying is that this entire argument rests on a pessimistic view of life. Suffering doesn't refute life.
How does any of that address anything in my OP? Your first line just confirms one of my premises. The rest is entirely irrelevant.
Antinatalism would not be true to its own morals.. I guess technically, it is agnostic to being based on consequentialism, but that is why I would not entertain that kind of super consequentialist thinking. I don't see the ground of morality based on such views. If you are a political lefty/socialist, does Stalin represent your highest ideals? Surely not. THAT'S not what you envision. If you are a Christian, does the Crusades or David Koresh or some nutball terrorist represent your highest ideals? My guess is no. There are extremes to any positions/beliefs/outlooks/worldviews etc.
Relevance? You've CONFIRMED one of my premises. Which one are you challenging?
Quoting Xtrix
That's invalid. 4 is not the conclusion that follows from 1,2 and 3. What follows is that all the harm mentioned in 3 is undeserved.
That's my conclusion - an interim conclusion. Now, what, in my OP, are you trying to challenge?
It's not irrelevant. You're making an argument that innocent people don't deserve harm. Fine.
We're all born innocent. So, according to you, none of us deserve harm. Right?
So none of us should have been born. Why? Because "harm" is simply a part of life. It's impossible to imagine a life without harm of any kind.
So it was a mistake on our parents part, just as it would be a mistake on our part to have kids. It's an immoral act.
Where have I misunderstood?
That's a premise that I take to be self-evident - indeed, it's a conceptual truth.
Quoting Xtrix
Not when we're born, no. We can subsequently do things to make ourselves deserve harm - such as procreate and do other wicked things - but we're born innocent and so we're born deserving no harm whatsoever.
Quoting Xtrix
We are default obliged not to create undeserved harm, yes? If doing x will create some undeserved harm, then we have moral reason not to do x, other things being equal.
Procreative acts subject an innocent person to undeserved suffering - shit loads of it. Thus we have moral reason not to perform those acts, other things being equal. That just follows as a matter of logic.
Do you disagree with any of that?
That one shouldn't be born because life isn't harm-free.
Quoting Bartricks
You posted this with the title "A New Argument for Antinatalism." I assumed that you want to say more than simply "harm is undeserved."
But OK, have it your way. What I'm challenging, then, is (2). This is why I made it personal -- which you claim is irrelevant. I was innocent at birth too, and I'm very glad to part of life -- which, yes, hasn't been harm-free. Whether I "deserved" any harm or not is incoherent -- harm is a part of life. Joy is too. Do I "deserve" joy?
Again -- what's so awful about "harm"? What do you mean by "harm"? Abuse? Torture?
Why are you expressing it like that? It's not about you - the one who has been born. You don't have an obligation not to have been born - how would you discharge that? Go back to when you didn't exist and stop yourself coming into being?
What I am arguing is that procreative acts - which are not performed by the one who is created by them - subject an innocent person to a shit load of undeserved harm and that generates moral reason not to perform such acts.
Quoting Xtrix
And my conclusion is an antinatalist one. The conclusion is that procreative acts are wrong - default wrong - because they create massive injustices: they create an innocent person - a person who deserves a happy harm-free life - and do not provide the innocent person with what they deserve. SO, they create injustice: they make the world a more unjust place.
Now, so far you have said precisely nothing to challenge any of that. So what, do you agree with all that? Do you agree that procreative acts are default wrong? Because you need to argue that something I've said above is false, not just straw man me by insisting that I'm some sort of pessimist. It's not a pessimistic argument at all. You do realize it goes through even if our lives here contain much more happiness than pain? Yes?
OK, sure. But most babies are born crying out of the womb. It's not the most pleasant process. So right away there's harm -- in fact a traumatic experience. But that's the price of admission to this wonderful world.
One could argue that every innocent "deserves" to be part of this wonderful world and to experience joy, and to deprive them of that is immoral.
Unless of course you don't think it's a wonderful world...which is why I mentioned pessimism.
Quoting Bartricks
And what of joy? Why so much emphasis on harm?
Again, what do you mean by harm? Pain? Suffering of any kind? Something more specific?
Quoting Bartricks
Indeed I do. What part? The part about suffering.
Nothing is "deserved" or "not deserved," those terms are ambiguous. Do kids "deserve" to be born or not is the better question.
The question is whether life is worth living even though there is suffering. If the answer is yes, then it's perfectly fine to have kids if one chooses to. If the answer is no, then the human species should become extinct -- yes? Which I'm not saying is illogical -- it's logical if you accept the premise, as the Buddhists do, that life is suffering and suffering should be eliminated.
Yes, an innocent person is born deserving no harm at all and positively deserving a happy life. So, they are born deserving a harm-free happy life.
Thus, any happiness - any benefit - that accrues to them is default deserved, just as any harm is default undeserved.
So, the harms are undeserved and the benefits are deserved.
The part about you being happy you were born is irrelevant.
They deserve much, much more than this. That's part of the point. They deserve no harm whatsoever. Not some harm and some benefit. No harm. Ziltch. Nada. No harm. And they deserve much more happiness than the world provides.
Quoting Xtrix
My claim is not at all pessimistic. Assume I think life here is everybit as wonderful as you do. My claim is that innocent persons deserve none - none - of the harms it contains and much much more of the happiness that it contains.
That's not remotely pessimistic. My claims are about the morality of procreation. Whatever joys you think life here contains, assume I think it contains them as well. That way you won't mistake me for a pessimist.
The pizza that is delivered has a shit on it. You phone up the restaurant to complain that what they delivered is not what you ordered, that it has a shit on it and that you did not order the shit.
The restaurant says "but is it not a lovely pizza? Have you tried part that doesn't have shit on it? It's delicious"
Would you think that's a good response - have they understood your point?
Well I don't fault my parents for having me, either. I guess that's more relevant. In fact I owe them a debt of gratitude for bringing me into this wonderful world, even though the price of admission is also suffering and death.
It's not about you either, incidentally. But out of curiosity, do you fault your parents for bringing you into the world? But your argument, you should.
Quoting Bartricks
Yes, I know. So don't have kids -- that's your choice. What I'm saying is that some kind of "logic" doesn't dictate this, it's a personal matter which largely depends on whether or not you believe life is worth living. This is why I keep mentioning pessimism. But I respect that point of view -- it's consistent. As I said before, many Buddhists hold this view and I hold them in high respect.
Quoting Bartricks
Why do they deserve that which is impossible? Do they not deserve joy as well, and to be part of a beautiful and wonderful world despite their being death and some pain? Isn't it equally relevant to say "innocent unborn beings deserve the chance to experience joys"? In that case, not having kids is immoral. Now I'm not arguing that, but it could be argued just as consistently.
Again -- it's a personal choice based on a personal view about the world. If you think that because life is not harm-free we should not consciously choose to reproduce, then you're saying, essentially, that life is a mistake. Why? Because, again, life inevitably involves suffering.
So essentially the argument rests on this perspective: because there is suffering, life is bad.
But what if life is an ultimate good, despite there being suffering?
I'm not arguing it's false. It's a personal choice. Just like saying "There is suffering, so life is refuted" is a choice. It's a perspective. Is it "wrong"? No, I just don't hold it myself. I don't agree -- I don't see it that way.
So yes, it does come down to perspective. It's not a matter of logic. The premise you mention about "deserving" a harm-free life is just another way of expressing the perspective mentioned. Is it true? Sure, if you see only suffering. But I ask about joy and you are silent.
That's question begging. You don't owe them a thing. They owe you. They owe you a happy harm free life - which is something they can't even come close to providing.
Quoting Xtrix
Of course. If I didn't, I would be a hypocrite, but my argument would be no less sound for that.
Quoting Xtrix
Er, I know and I don't. Misses the point: antinatalism is a normative view: a view about what we 'ought' to do. So, by just insisting that it's 'just a matter of choice' you once more beg the question. It isn't like deciding to have coffee rather than tea. It's a choice between doing something immoral and not.
Quoting Xtrix
Yes it does. I am showing that it does. There are umpteen good arguments for antinatalism, of which the one in the OP is an example. That's why it's a respectable philosophical position that has an increasingly number of defenders.
So far you have said nothing to suggest any premise in my argument is false. You are pointing to other considerations, but not saying anything to challenge any of my argument's premises.
Quoting Xtrix
Are you saying that one can't deserve the impossible? If we can show that x is inevitalble, then no matter what x is, you can't be said not to deserve it? Imagine it's inevitable that Jane will be raped. The world is deterministic, say, and so it's inevitable that Jane will be raped. It's impossible for it not to happen. Right - well, she doesn't deserve to be, does she? Or at least, simply discovering that it was inevitable is not of a piece with discovering that she does not deserve not to be raped.
Quoting Xtrix
No.
There is no pessimistic premise in my argument.
Let's go back to the pizza restaurant. You ordered and paid for a cheese pizza. They delivered a cheese pizza with a poo on it.
You phoned to complain that this is not what you ordered (and thus not what you deserved to have been given).
They say "Why so pessimistic? Most of the pizza does not have poo on it and those bits - the majority - are delicious!"
That'd be crazy, yes? They've missed your point. Your point was not that most of the pizza has poo on it. Nor was it that the bits that do not have poo on it aren't delicious. Your point is that you deserved to be given a pizza that had no poo on it whatever and was entirely delicious.
I'm you in this scenario and you're the person on the other end of the line.
Well what of happy lives that are NOT harm-free (like, I would argue, my own)?
In other words, what if an innocent person -- a baby -- deserves to live a happy life? Sure, I agree with that. But happiness doesn't simply mean "zero pain whatsoever," as you know.
So I would separate the two. There's harm-free, which is impossible, and there's "happy" (and here I take happiness in the Aristotelian sense), which is possible (even if rare).
So I take your "positively deserving a happy life" seriously. I think that's true, sure. But you cannot possibly have a happy life without suffering...thus, a "harm-free happy life" is an oxymoron. As if "harm-free life" in general, incidentally.
Quoting Bartricks
Is a stomach ache "deserved" or "undeserved"? Is being in love "deserved" or not?
Those terms really don't apply, in my view. But if we are talking that way, then it's a personal choice. Does my (potential) child "deserve" to be born or not? That's the question -- and the answer depends on what you think of life. If you think life is, on the whole, a good -- then yes, have kids. If you think it isn't, then don't.
If you think that because there's even the slightest pain involved in being alive, that this fact negates everything else -- which is what you're arguing, really -- then that is indeed pessimism.
Deciding to have kids rests on many factors and is very personal. But the one you offer about "undeserving harm" is rather unconvincing. If it convinces you, great. But you're in a philosophy forum, and putting forth an argument for "anti-natalism," which has implications not just for you but for others. If a major premise of yours rests solely on your personal interpretation of life, then you shouldn't be altogether shocked if many aren't persuaded.
Says you. But think about it for a minute. NO harm? What does that mean? Is that possible?
No. So, again, in essence you're saying: there should be no kids because life contains suffering.
I think that's a very weak argument -- not wrong, really, but very strange to me. You mean to tell me that if you could see in the future and your kid, say, created a utopia on earth -- or discovered the cure to diseases, or revolutionized philosophy or science or music...but stubbed his toe a few times...that you would say "Sorry, he deserved no pain whatsoever; zero, zilch; thus, I'm not having this kid." Obviously we cannot see into the future...but for the sake of argument, would that actually be your conclusion?
Quoting Bartricks
OK.
Quoting Bartricks
Yes, I understand. You've said that multiple times. What I'm saying is that this is completely incoherent. Why? Because you cannot have "none" of the harms without negating life completely. If that's truly your criterion for the morality of having a child, then there should be no kids -- ever. So the statement "much much more of the happiness that it contains" is moot, even if we agreed about it. Life -- whether happy or not -- cannot exist without suffering.
Quoting Bartricks
Fine -- but you've already negated life. You assume all the joys exist, but you will not pass those joys on to another life because suffering also exists. How is that anything other than saying "Suffering refutes life"? And how is that anything but pessimism? That's Schopenhauer's stance, as you know -- and many Buddhists.
I don't use "pessimism" pejoratively, by the way. It's simply a worldview.
Again, what you're doing here is pointing out that the pizza is mainly delicious, despite having a poo on it.
You ordered a cheese pizza and so that's what you deserved to get. Not a cheese pizza with a poo on it.
An innocent person deserves a harm-free happy life. Not a happy life with some harm in it.
You are mischaracterizing my view as "pizza with poo on it totally bad" and just ignoring that my point is that if one has ordered a poo-free cheese pizza and one is given a cheese pizza with poo on it, then you have not received what you deserved. That if someone orders a cheese pizza then that's what one ought to give them. And if you can't - if the only pizzas you've got in your restaurant have poo on them - then you don't accept their order.
You're misusing the word incoherent. I am not claiming that a happy harm free life is possible. I don't think it is (not in a world like this, anyway). That's why one ought not to procreate!!
I am saying things multiple times because my view keeps being changed into something else - something your criticisms will work against.
If you understood my view the first time I expressed it, then you would know that it was not pessimistic in the least.
Again: the pizza restaurant. You discover that all your pizzas have poo on them. Every single one. Therefore if anyone orders a pizza from you, you're going to have to give them a pooey one.
Now, you're reasoning "Oh, well as it is impossible for me to give anyone a pizza without poo on it, that's what I'll give people, even if they order cheese pizzas and not cheese and poo pizzas"
That's mental reasoning. If people deserve cheese pizzas and all you've got is poo and cheese pizzas, you don't take their orders. You shut up shop. You put 'sorry, out of cheese pizzas' on the door. You don't take the orders and deliver pooey pizzas to everyone.
And when I phone up and say "why the bloody hell does my pizza have a poo on it!!" you don't reply "but it's mainly cheese and only a bit of poo - stop being so pessimistic, the non-poo bits are lovely" because that's absurd and somewhat misses the point!
You missed the point then! Even when the die is fair (50/50 chances), given the severity of the loss (torturesome life), no one will, given the option, play the game of chance that life is.
It doesn't have to be possible. That's not going to affect whether it is undeserved or not.
Note too that none of the harms that will inevitable occur in any life one creates 'have' to occur, for one does not have to create the life in question.
Let's say Jack does not deserve to die. You throw him off a bridge. I point out that he didn't deserve to die. YOu point out that it's now inevitable that he will as he's falling towards the ground at a rate of knots. That's irrelevant - yes 'now' his death is inevitable given that you just threw him off the bridge, but you can't thereby make it the case that his death is not undeserved and taht therefore your act of hurling him off the bridge was not wrong.
An innocent person does deserve a happy life too. And it may be impossible to give someone an entirely happy life that is free from all pain. So what? Again, that's like discovering you've only got poo pizzas. It doesn't make opening up shop and delivering poo pizzas to people who ordered - and so deserve - cheese pizzas the right thing to do, does it?
That's NOT pessimism. Again, everything I am saying is entirely consistent with whatever rosy outlook you have. There isn't a shred of pessimism in the view. You just think that if you can characterize my view in that way then you can simply attribute it to my pessimism (I am not a pessimist) rather than to the fact that solid arguments lead to it. Sorry matey, that's wishful thinking on your part. I'm an antinatalist because it's where the arguments lead. If it helps imagine me prancing through a field picking flowers and singling tralalalalalala.
And again, one is not pessimistic if one thinks that the slightest bit of poo on the pizza is grounds complaint and grounds for not delivering it.
If your pizza restaurant only has in its storeroom pizzas with tinsy winsy bits of poo on them, then you don't open. You don't open and insist that anyone who complains about the little bits of poo is a pessimist!!
"Excuse me - this pizza has a tiny bit of shit on it"
"Oh, you're so 'glass half empty'!"
In that specific case, no. I don't think it's a great analogy though. Why? Because we're talking about something much bigger -- we're talking about life. So what if the pizza were the size of the world? Would the fact that there was shit on it negate all of that pizza?
Your analogy is a good one in terms of proportion. By that I mean it would hold true for life if, say, we knew 95% of it would be agonizing pain. In that case, sure -- no person deserves that. That's a serious question which often arises, in fact. If the baby is known to have a disease where there is prolonged suffering which will inevitably end in death, parents have to make the decision about whether to terminate (out of compassion). In this case, it would be like taking the opposite stance to my thought experiment about seeing the future.
But life isn't all shit. It's not all pizza, either.
Quoting Bartricks
Which no one can provide.
But in any case, that's your assertion. If you feel your parents owed you something -- specifically, a life free of any harm whatsoever, that's your business. But it's just that -- an assertion.
I could just as easily assert that what they "owed" me was life -- a ticket to this world.
Quoting Bartricks
Why do you fault them? I thought you just said you weren't a pessimist and assumed -- just as I do -- that there were all these joys. So if life is good, as I think, then it's a good thing they brought you into the world -- and you should be grateful to them, not faulting them.
But of course you fault them because you don't think life is good. You think life isn't good. And you think life isn't good because there's suffering -- even the slightest bit of suffering.
I just don't interpret life that way. Perhaps it's more dispositional.
But rather than assume, I'll just ask: Do you believe life is, on the whole, a good?
Quoting Bartricks
It's not begging the question. I'm not assuming my conclusion in what I said. I'm simply saying that there is no universal normative claim that can be made. Why? Because it ultimately rests on whether you believe life is good and worth living -- or not. Is the glass half empty or full? If you think empty -- for whatever psychological reasons -- then you most certainly should not have kids.
If you're trying to convince others that they should not have kids, then you need a better normative argument than simply "Life is bad because there's pain." So far you've not done so. You've tried to invoke logic, but a major premise is an assertion based on, again, your general attitude and interpretation of the world and what you think the world "owes" you and what life "should" be (namely, free of harm). But since that world is impossible, life is therefore ultimately an evil -- and we should put an end to having kids and perpetuating the meaningless, harmful cycle.
Quoting Bartricks
But you really haven't shown that. If you had, I would be in agreement. You can assume I'm just an idiot who can't follow you -- fine. But otherwise, you need to argue better. I think it's a fool's mission though, because you've already revealed a premise as entirely dependent on a fundamental judgment of life. And there's nothing I can do about a fundamental judgment of life.
Quoting Bartricks
You keep repeating this, so I'll keep repeating myself as well: I'm challenging the second premise. This premise: that babies deserve a life free of harm.
That's the premise I'm challenging.
Quoting Bartricks
No, I'm saying: Why do they deserve the impossible? Viz: Why are you claiming that they "deserve" something which is impossible?
Quoting Bartricks
Yes, indeed. As I've continued to show.
Quoting Bartricks
There is. It's the premise I mentioned above. The premise I'm challenging.
Quoting Bartricks
Yes, they've missed your point. And?
Quoting Bartricks
"Deserve" has nothing to do with it. Maybe I did deserve it from someone's point of view -- who cares?
The point is that it's not what I ordered.
So relate that to life. What are you arguing with this analogy? You want to deny that you're arguing that "Life is bad because there's suffering." Yet this analogy is saying "This is not what I ordered -- doesn't matter if the rest of it is good, I didn't order the bad." Which, again, just assumes your premise of "there should be zero suffering." There should be no harm, there should be no poo -- because we didn't order/consent to either.
But what if the person said, "Yeah, I'll take the pizza with shit on it. Better than the alternative -- which is starving to death." Yes, that may not be what you choose -- fair enough. But that's not a moral argument -- whether about having kids or eating the pizza.
I don't consider life to be a pizza with shit on it.
Quoting Bartricks
Yes, you have no received what you ordered.
That has nothing to do with life. Why? Because you're not born saying "I'm ordering one life with NO harm whatsoever please," as you would with pizza. The shit is part of life. It would be like saying "I'll have one pizza with no dough please." That's part of the pizza. Either you want a pizza -- which includes dough (not shit), or you don't want a pizza. Either you want life (which includes pain/death), or you don't.
Quoting Bartricks
No, it's completely accurate: incomprehensible.
Quoting Bartricks
Exactly. Which is pessimism.
One should not procreate because there is harm.
Thus, harm renders life bad -- or, to put another way, UNWORTHY OF CREATING. In other words, the human species should die out -- which is the outcome of antinatalism. Life is a mistake, humans are a mistake.
You keep wanting to claim it's not pessimism, but that's exactly what it is. Which is fine -- but at least be honest about it. Don't hide behind "logic" and "premises" and throw around Rhetoric 101 terms like "begging the question" and "strawman," as if this entire argument doesn't rest on anything other than your own views on what is "deserved" in life and what a "good" or "worthy" life would be (namely, impossible -- i.e., harm-free).
Quoting Bartricks
No. First, one doesn't "order" anything in life. If you feel, as an adult making a choice about whether to have kids, that bringing a life into the world where harm is inevitable is enough of a reason not to bring a life into the world, then that's your own business.
Again, the proper analogy is: expecting a pizza which is impossible. Not one without "poo," but one without dough. But dough is what makes it a pizza. So either you want a pizza (which means dough), or you don't.
To be clear: your pizza analogy fails because suffering is part of life. Poo is not part of pizza.
Now, what DEGREE of suffering? Again, that's a serious question -- and one where perhaps your analogy would be suitable. In abnormal circumstances, where there is excessive pain and suffering, the question about whether to bring a life into the world becomes much more relevant.
Quoting Bartricks
You're not pessimistic because you dislike suffering. You're pessimistic because you allow suffering to negate life.
Antinatalism, as a normative stance, argues that human beings should not have kids. That's nothing more than negating -- literally negating -- life, and exterminating the species. And somehow that's not pessimism?
Quoting Bartricks
Yes, it is.
If suffering negates life, that is pessimism. It is saying that life is (despite some "good things," as you claim) bad -- and thus, unworthy of continuing -- and it is bad because suffering exists. This is what you're advocating.
Quoting Bartricks
Not a rosy outlook -- just not one that claims because any kind of suffering exists whatsoever, that life is ultimately bad, negated, and not worthy of continuing.
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
The arguments aren't solid or compelling in the least. It rests solely on the premise "one deserves a life with no harm." There's no evidence supporting this -- it's simply asserted. Fine. Leave pessimism out of it, if you wish. That premise is, at best, unconvincing.
If it's convincing to you, again -- don't have kids. Be well. I won't even speculate on the psychological underpinnings of it. It's just entirely unconvincing to me. To say the argument is "solid" and that's what leads you to the conclusion -- despite "not being a pessimist"...well, if you say so!
The rather disheartening realization that nonexistence is better in some cases is as old as the mountains (vide infra).
[quote=Socrates]An unexamined life is not worth living.[/quote]
In other words, antinatalism can trace its roots right back to the father of philosophy, the Athenian gadfly, no less!
:up:
Intellectual natalismsubtle as always!
So, you mean to say you would still have kids even when you knew they would be tortured all their lives?
How many of us actually examine our lives? It's paradoxical that antinatalism proceeds from examination (of our lives).
Yep! That's the key word! It's not meant for everybody but the same goes for natalism, not everybody's cuppa tea.
How about we look up some statistics? Are people rational? Look around and, well, smell the [s]roses[/s] shit we're neck deep in. One requirement for being able to think rationally is a certain minimum level of comfort/happiness.
So I was thinking about this earlier.. People tend to think if you widen the playing field of choices you give a person, that this somehow justifies imposing a situation on them. So a lot of the disagreement comes into play in terms of how much choice is acceptable for imposition. Many (or most) antinatalists would argue that there is almost no amount of choice given to someone, as long as that set of given choices was imposed upon someone, that they have to make that is acceptable.
Thus, if you were imposed upon to having to like only one thing, only survive in one way, only listen to this or that.. You would maybe agree that this is not something one would think is fair to impose on another. You widen the "field of choices" out even more and there is a greater quantity of choices that your imposition has permitted for that person.. Well, then the pro-natalist might argue that the amount of choices given in a certain kind of life is enough choices that the imposition is now "fair". But the antinatalists are going to object that no, even those choices, (even if there is more quantity and diversity of choices), are not enough to fairly impose onto someone. The choice to not have to make any of those choices is de facto off the table. The choice to no follow any of the premises that "this life" has to offer is off the table. I had some threads a while ago about the idea of complying or dying. That is exactly the thing being imposed upon the person.. complying with what someone else thinks are the acceptable choices or .. well there's not much else one can do..
:ok:
What exactly are we talking about here?
1. Suffering, its excessiveness (even from a stoic perspective).
2. Happiness, hard to come by and fleeting.
3. Life.
4. Uncertainty/the veil of ignorance (not knowing what life will be like, happy/sad/bit of both/more of one, less of the other).
What's the best course of action given the above? Natalism/Antinatalism? Not a one-size-fits-all scenario? Customization, tailoring one's beliefs, acting in the way appropriate to one's circumstances?
Suffering has more weightage than happiness - i.e. even if it's unlikely that I could go to hell, it's still a cause of much anxiety. I can't take any chances is what I mean.
I think that it's highly unlikely that a good person like you would go to hell :)
People are good more because they don't wanna end up in hell and less because they wanna be in heaven. Nothing motivates like hurt! :grin:
I hope that more people can start being good to each other because they genuine care about the common good.
Nothing motivates like the desire to preventing damage to our body and our state of satisfaction.
Quoting Agent Smith
So, happy folks are there to, inter alia, rub salt on sad folks' wounds, to intensify the suffering, to double the pain as it were. Are happy folks then really happy? :chin:
Quoting Xtrix
I wasn't referring to the pain experienced by existing people. The point was that the disvalue of hell is intensified by the perceived value of heaven. One need to imagine anybody except themselves in this scenario.
I believe that true happiness comes from helping others, not from unrestricted consumerism and competition.
You seem studiously to be ignoring the actual argument made and addressing different ones. No premise of the argument I made assumed that life is not worth living. It's not about how worthwhile it is for someone living a life to continue living it. It is about the morality of the act that created it.
It's like me arguing that raping Jane was wrong and you insisting that I am arguing that the life of the child the rape created is not worth living. The act that created that life was wrong. That does not in any way imply that what the act created ought to be destroyed.
Using slaves to build the pyramids: wrong. You: "so we should destroy the pyramids?" No.
You also seem not to know what pessimism involves. First, it is quality of people, not arguments. I'm not pessimistic and even if I was, that would not affect the soundness of my argument. Second, no premise in my argument assumes that life is miserable or anything else remotely construable as pessimistic.
It assumes that innocent people do not deserve to suffer - that's not a 'pessimistic' assumption, it's a conceptual truth that in no way indicates any pessimism on the part of its asserter.
It assumes that harm that befalls an innocent is undeserved. Again, in no possible way is that a pessimistic assumption.
It assumes that life here will visit some harms on anyone who is brought here. That's not pessimistic. You accept it and everyone accepts it who isn't totally nuts.
Again: the reason you have to construe me as a pessimist is in order to be able to persuade yourself that some kind of psychological flaw explains my antinatalism rather than it being the logical implication of some extraordinarily plausible premises. That's wishful thinking.
So far, then, you have committed the straw man fallacy, the ad hominem fallacy and the wishful thinking fallacy (for those who like naming fallacies).
That makes no difference - that's the point. It's like saying that my analogy is not a good one because you would have ordered a pepperoni pizza and not a cheese one.
The analogy is an extremely good one. Why? Because it models the relevant features. James orders a cheese pizza. And that means he now deserves to get one. THe relevant feature here is not the pizza, but the fact that James 'deserves' to receive a cheese pizza.
So, James deserves a cheese pizza. Not a cheese pizza with some shit on it. A cheese pizza.
And an innocent person deserves a harm-free life. Not a life with some harm in it. A harm-free life.
What did James actually receive? A pizza with some shit on it. And so he phones up the restaurant to complain - quite rightly.
What does the person at the restaurant say? Well, they say what you were saying. They say "but its mainly pizza - there's only a bit with shit on". And they say "stop being so pessimistic - most of teh pizza is nice! What you complaining about? You should be grateful. We make you nice pizza. Yes, there's some shit on it, but all our pizzas in cupboard have a bit of shit on. We can't help that. They come with a bit of shit on. So you stop complaining. Stop being miserable. You miserable. No refund. You be grateful to us for giving you pizza"
That's a bonkers reply, yes? That doesn't begin to appreciate the problem. Yes, James has received a pizza. And yes, most of it will be nice and doesn't have shit on. But he 'deserves' an entirely shit free pizza. And he doesn't owe anyone a debt of gratitude - he deserves a shit free pizza. What he deserves is a shit free pizza and those who sent him a shitty one ought to be condemned. And if they have nothing but shitty pizzas then that's no excuse - they shouldn't have opened shop until they got some shit free ones in.
insofar as there are differences, the differences operate to make it even clearer that procraetive acts are wrong.
That's a difference of degree, not kind. Remember: innocent people do not deserve any harm. Any.
Quoting Xtrix
No, it's not an 'assertion'. It's a 'conclusion'. The conclusion - not a premise, but a conclusion!!! - is that innocent persons deserve a harm-free happy life. (Note, to make any argument whatever one has to assert some things - it's like criticising me for using language. The only relevant consideration is whether my conclusions follow from premises that are self-evident to reason or far more self-evident than their negations.)
If you're the one responsible for creating such a person, then you owe them that. That's how debts work. If you run up a debt, then you owe the debt. Not me. You.
If you create a person who deserves a harm-free happy life, and you do that of your own free will, then you owe them that. They don't owe anyone anything. They haven't done anything!
Quoting Xtrix
Point. Missed.
Life isn't a pizza. That's not a good reply to my analogy. It just means you don't understand what's relevant and what's not.
Sex isn't a phoneline. That's not a good reply to my analogy.
Quoting Xtrix
No, you clearly don't understand how the analogy works.
Now, I have already said - and I am just going to keep saying it until you acknowledge or understand the point - that possibility does not affect desert.
When you threw James off the bridge, you rendered his death two seconds later inevitable. That doesn't mean that upon throwing him off the bridge he ceased not to deserve to die.
Now, once more, in the pizza example James deserves something - a pizza.
The people in the pizza place can't give James what he deserves, because they only have shit pizzas.
So what ought they have done? Ought they have advertised cheese pizzas and let people order and pay for cheese pizzas - thus generating a deservingness of cheese pizzas - when they know full well that all they can possibly give people are shitted-upon pizzas?
No. Join the dots. Ought you procreate? No.
You know that if you procreate you'll be creating someone who'll deserve a harm-free happy life.
You also know that you can't give them that.
So, you own a pizza place and you know that the cupboard has nothing but shat-upon pizzas in it
Is it right to open up shop when you know full well that what'll be advertised - and so what people will be ordering and thereby coming to deserve - will be cheese only pizzas, when you know full well that it is impossible for you to give them cheese only pizzas, indeed that you'll be giving them shat-upon ones?
No. It's not right. You don't 'have' to open up the pizza place. But if you do, all the above will happen. So, don't open it. It's wrong. It's bad.
You don't have to procreate. If you procreate you know you'll be creating someone who'll deserve a harm-free happy life. You also know that you can't possibly give them that - the cupboard only has lives that have shit on them in it and you know full well that anyone you bring into being will have to live one of those slightly shat upon lives (and you know as well that some will have really really shitty ones...but let's not get distracted by that highly morally relevant consideration because my argument - my one - doesn't require that to be the case....just an itsy bitsy bit of shit will do). So you ought not to procreate, then, yes? You'll be creating a desert of something you can't provide.
Note another thing - the pizza analogy is importantly different from procreation cases. If you don't open the joint, no one will get a pizza. There will be people deprived of pizza - people who may have wanted pizza enough to be willing to scrape the shit (the shit they still didn't deserve) off.
But when it comes to procreation, if you don't procreate you haven't deprived anyone of the slightly shat upon life they would otherwise have led, have you? They don't exist to be deprived.
That's a relevant difference between the cases - but it operates to make it even clearer that procreative acts are wrong. For the fact that by not opening the pizza joint you'll be depriving people of pizzas - albeit slightly shitty ones when they deserve much better - is a fact that speaks in favour of opening. Procreative acts possess no similar feature.
It also reminds me of Stalin (vide infra).
[quote=Joseph Stalin]Death is the solution to all problems. No man - no problem.[/quote]
A quarrel, if allowed to, soon escalates into a death match! Once you kill your opponent, you feel like Andrew Wiles, they brilliant chap who proved Fermat's Last Theorem, who solved a 400 year-old mathematical problem! :snicker:
I think I have made my arguments against antinatalism crystal clear by now, so I have explained why I would help build and maintain cities. The two vids posted by DA671 should give you pause for thought when it comes to your interest/slight support of antinatalism. To me it's completely incompatible with socialism/humanism as both of those doctrines are pointless if no humans exist.
:clap: :clap: :clap: I always appreciate your attempt to entertain others with your bizarre musings.
Yes it is. Certainly the larger argument might be something like, "We are not obligated to create happy people (if that person isn't there to be deprived), but it seems we are obliged to not create unhappy people (who may indeed actually exist)".
However, it's not even that claim I was discussing, but more about the nature of imposing life on another and when it's justified. Pro-natalists think that life can be imposed as long as X criteria of choices is involved and X criteria of harm is involved. In other words, they recognize that there is an "acceptable" amount of harm that someone else will suffer.
For the antinatalist, both of these claims are misguided. By its very nature, presuming for another that "these range of choices are good" is wrong. I call this moralistic misguided thinking "aggressive paternalism". It presumes one knows what is meaningful, best, or good for another, when in fact they may be ignorant themselves (if these are somehow "objectively" true), or simply, wrong (if they are relatively true and that person being affected just doesn't agree).
Also for antinatalists, presuming that it is permissible to allow the conditions for X criteria of harm is also presumptuous for another. Again, it is aggressively paternalistic to assume that X types of harm are acceptable for other people to suffer. These are flawed and misguided notions that someone else should arbitrarily, by their own reckoning, be the arbiter of what is acceptable in the range of choices or the range of harms that others should encounter. The sad thing is, there is no alternative for those who would disagree.. Only suicide and cajoling that, "This life isn't that bad!" and all the cultural pressures of thousands of years of optimism bias.
Also don't forget, there is unforeseeable harm as well as expected harm for the future person that would be born. The parents might have thought that only X amount of harm would take place, but there are other (perhaps more serious) harms that can befall a person that they didn't even expect and is regrettable. I'll call this a "known unknown". We know that there is unforeseeable harms for future people, so even though we don't know the specifics, we can understand a vague idea of it, and we know that it is a frequent occurrence.
Thanatos rules over animals (natalism). Algos over humans (antinatalism).
Something doesn't add up here!
This feels important: Apoptosis (cellular suicide). Hypothesis: Those who're suicidal are carrying a (microbial/meme) contagion of sorts and the only way to stop the spread is hara kiri. :chin:
Yes it does. If its worth living meaning it is, on the whole, a good then its (in general) worth having kids. Despite the fact that it doesnt happen to fit your definition of whats deserved.
If life isnt worth living in this case because there is suffering, and no baby deserves any suffering whatsoever then we shouldnt have kids.
There's really no way around it, as a matter of logic. Otherwise you have to basically say, "No, life is wonderful and I'm just as happy as you are and want to go on living -- totally worthwhile as an adult; but not as a baby, which I was too at one point."
So life is good and worthwhile and a blessing, if you're grown up (like us), but it's still a mistake to have kids -- and it was still a mistake for our parents to have us?
It's contradictory, I'm afraid.
Either it's a mistake to have kids -- in which case, if that's your view, YOU are mistake. You should not have been born. Or it's not a mistake.
Quoting Bartricks
I have addressed that premise multiple times and, thus, the argument.
And yes, it does assume life isnt worth living. Youre simply not seeing it because its a few assumptions removed from the point about deserving no harm. Ill keep trying, but ultimately theres little I can do if youre not willing to acknowledge it.
It doesnt refute the argument, incidentally. I think this is partly what youre thinking. But I dont view pessimism as a refutation. If you dont like the word pessimism fine. We can use another term or phrase.
But if life is worth living then its worth living in spite of the unfairness or undeservedness of suffering.
Otherwise youre contradicting yourself.
But you already said you believe your own life was a mistake and you fault your parents for it. But its still wonderful and worth living? How does this get reconciled?
Because if its worth it for YOU despite being born innocent and having to endure suffering then why is it NOT worth it for a future human being?
Quoting Bartricks
Why is it worthwhile to continue living it when theres undeserved suffering involved?
Quoting Bartricks
Not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Quoting Bartricks
Its not about deserving anything. That word is a value judgment. Its saying suffering is bad for anyone born. Ok, fine. But life is both suffering and happiness, pain and pleasure theyre two sides of the same coin. So by saying they dont deserve any pain, then they dont deserve any life because its impossible to live pain-free or suffering-free. It's not as if suffering is something that can be removed -- as if it's an evil imposed on what would be perfection. It's not a flaw, it's simply an aspect -- a part. And a part you ultimately believe should prevent us from choosing to have kids.
So again, this is the premise Ive been arguing against from the beginning. It rests on nothing but your assertion and value judgment. Why you choose to say this instead of no one innocent deserves life is unknown, but thats what youre saying: no one should be born because life contains suffering and suffering is undeserved. No one should have pizza because it contains dough, and I don't like dough.
What if I were to argue instead: we should have kids because every kid deserves to experience joy? True, Im ignoring suffering with this statement but its as equally valid as yours, which ignores joy.
Again whats so terrible about suffering?
Since its part of life, they DO deserve to experience suffering -- because life is amazing!
Quoting Bartricks
Alright then -- forget pessimism. I retract that. It's clear to me your argument is predicated on it, but you don't agree. Fine. Makes no difference -- I was hoping you'd just acknowledge it, because I don't believe it has any bearing whatsoever on the truth or falsity of the argument, any more than saying "the glass is half empty" is somehow refuted because it emphasizes emptiness instead of fullness. But so be it.
Let's try to parse your argument out without references to pessimism, based exactly on what you said above.
First, let's be clear with our words so we're not talking past one another. I am using "harm" as synonymous with words like "suffering" and "pain" -- which are simply part of life. You seem to be fine with that, as you haven't indicated it's inaccurate.
Second, the word "deserve" is unclear. It implies being entitled, owed, or worth-of something. But according to who? When someone gets a stomach ache, does it make sense to say they "deserve" a stomach ache? If we talk like that, we're assuming a human being making a judgment about whether or not that person "deserves" this or not -- maybe they ate an entire cake and we feel they "deserve" what they get, etc. But those are human value judgments; moral judgments; judgments that involve notions of "good" and "bad," and particularly of justice, in the sense of what is deemed fair or unfair. When it comes to facts of the world, it's not always useful to talk in terms like these. The tree got struck by lightning -- did the tree deserve it? I throw a rock into a pond -- does the water deserve to be disturbed? No one can step outside of life, so how you judge what's deserved or undeserved, fair or unfair, is dependent on your own perspective. That's essentially a truism.
So see if you agree with this: it is unjust for an innocent to suffer. This is just a different way of saying what you're saying above, in my view -- can we agree on that?
Lastly, "innocent" is a bit strange. Innocent of what, and who decides innocence?
With semantics out of the way, let me rephrase your premises a bit:
(1) "harm that befalls an innocent is undeserved" = It is unjust for an innocent to suffer.
(2) "life here will visit some harms on anyone who is brought here" = Suffering is an inescapable part of life.
That's all you've said so far. I'm not assuming the conclusion yet, I'm not attributing anything to pessimism. To be crystal clear: what I'm challenging is premise (1).
OK?
Quoting Bartricks
Humor me and answer it anyway. What do you think? Is life worth living or not?
If so, why? And why deprive others of this worthy experience? Why make an exception of yourself?
OK. But how is this relevant to life? No one says "I'll have one life, please" -- and then, because there's suffering in it, is indignant. They don't say: "This isn't what I asked for! I asked for life!"
You see why the analogy fails?
Shit is not part of pizza. If shit WERE a part of pizza (like dough is), you have no right to be upset that shit is on your pizza any more than you would that pizza is made of dough. That's simply part of the pizza.
It's true that in the real world, shit is NOT part of pizza. So you'd be right to be upset -- it's not what you ordered.
Let's bring it to life. By this analogy you're trying to characterize my argument as: "Just ignore the shit and look at everything else on the pizza." That's not what I'm arguing -- whether about pizza or about life. Life contains suffering and pain. I'm not saying "ignore the suffering and focus only on the joy," I'm saying life *IS* pain and it *IS* joy. You cannot have one without the other, they're both part of the term and phenomenon of "life" itself. Pain cannot be removed without removing life.
Back to the pizza. Shit is not part of pizza. Suffering is, however, part of life. If you ask for life, you're asking for suffering. If you ask for pizza, you're asking for dough. If you don't want suffering and you don't want dough, then you don't want life and you don't want pizza -- which is perfectly fine. You could ask, "Why?" and the answer would be: because I don't want suffering or I don't want dough.
The analogy fails because you're equating "shit" with harm in this analogy. To expect a pizza without shit on it is perfectly reasonable; to expect life without shit (harm) in it is like expecting a triangle with 2 sides -- insane.
Quoting Bartricks
That's not what I'm arguing at all.
Quoting Bartricks
True.
Quoting Bartricks
No, because there is no such thing as a harm-free life. That's impossible, as you've agreed. That's like asking for pizza without dough. If the pizza shows up with dough, that's to be expected. Likewise, a life with suffering is to be expected -- it's simply part of it. Like death -- a part of life.
We can imagine a life without harm or suffering, sure. Concepts of heaven, for example -- or some other kind of perfection, ideal, paradise. But those are based on human conceptions of perfection and goodness, and they will vary.
It's like "deserving" a triangle with 2 sides. Well, that's impossible. A triangle has three sides. If you ask for a triangle, and you're upset that it shows up with 3 sides -- that just means you misunderstood what a triangle is.
Triangles comes with three sides. Life comes with suffering. Pizza comes with dough.
You either want these things or you don't.
The rest is superfluous and I'll skip it.
It's a belief, whether you call it an assertion or conclusion. That life should be harm-free is a belief. I see no evidence to support that belief one way or another, and you've offered none.
That doesn't make it "wrong" or inconsistent. It just makes it unconvincing...at least to me.
I don't believe life should be harm-free. I don't view that as a good, or something more desirable than life as it is.
I view life as it is as a good; and life as it is includes suffering. Thus, suffering is ultimately good too.
I would distinguish between necessary and unnecessary suffering, perhaps. But that's a different discussion.
Quoting Bartricks
Which they clearly aren't. If they were, I'd be agreeing with you.
Quoting Bartricks
They don't deserve a harm-free life. Harm-free lives are impossible. If that's what they deserve, then it's impossible to give it to them -- and so you get to your conclusion is one step.
Rather, they either (1) deserve life, as it is, or they (2) don't deserve life, as it is.
There's no third option. That's a fantasy. So given how things actually are, we're back to square one.
Now, I could assert: every person born deserves angel wings and the power of invisibility. That's impossible too, but we can fantasize about it. But I wouldn't use the fact that life falls short of that fantasy as a reason not to have kids. I could, I guess, but I think that'd be ridiculous.
I think it's equally unconvincing to argue you shouldn't have kids because life falls short of some harm-free fantasy.
--
Quoting Bartricks
See above on why this analogy fails.
Quoting Bartricks
No, I don't "know" that. I don't believe that. I don't accept that. That's what I've been telling you for a while now.
They don't deserve a harm-free life. That's a made-up premise, or assertion, or conclusion. It's a belief -- and one that I'm well aware you hold. I do not hold that belief.
Quoting Bartricks
This is a good illustration of why the analogy fails, as I outlined in the previous post above. You're equating the "shit" with "harm," as I highlighted. And that's where it breaks down. Why? Again: because harm is part of life. Or, to shift to your analogy to make it accurate: shit (harm) is part of the pizza (life). To expect life without harm is like expecting pizza without dough or a triangle without three sides. It's impossible. One doesn't say "I didn't order this three-sided thing -- I ordered a triangle!" Mutatis mutandis, life and harm.
So the question, once again, comes down to:
Should you create life or not create life?
Is life good or is it bad?
Is it worth being born, or not worth being born?
I answer all of the above in the affirmative. It is worth it, yes; it is good. Despite suffering, despite death, despite pain, loss, and heartache. I'd do it all again if I could, and I'm grateful for the chance -- grateful to my parents, grateful to the universe. If I were Christian or Muslim, I'd be grateful perhaps to God or Allah. But hey, that's me.
Does that mean I'll actually have kids? No. But there are other reasons involved in that, much more personal, subjective, value-laden, situational, and complicated -- reasons that far exceed the attempted generalized abstractions of this thread. And, I beg your pardon, also far more interesting.
And that is the major difference in moral reasoning here.
I have said previously that unnecessary suffering is that which you impose on another person which did not ameliorate a greater harm for a lesser harm for that person.
Also this brings up my idea on where the line is drawn for what is permissible in terms of impositions allowed on others.. I would suggest reading my last comment on that as it directly relates to this notion as to what is permissible to do on behalf of others:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
Quoting schopenhauer1
It seems to me that the strongest argument for AN is consequentialist (would you build a city that is reliant on the unbearable suffering of a small child) (There will be hundreds of millions of sacrificial lambs in what we are building). The consent argument, asymmetry argument, etc, don't have the same feel to me.
Interesting that you say "super consequentialist thinking". What proportion of your views (if any) are consequentialist? Do you think it's consistent for one to have a general consequentialist outlook while also having overriding principles (such as sanctity of life, consent etc)?
Quoting Bartricks
Think about it. What does it say about the universe that people can do immoral things? What is more, they can do things that some people consider "immoral", and they are nevertheless happy and suffer no ill effects. For example, people can kill, rape, and pillage, and live happily everafter. Doesn't this strike you as noteworthy?
Normative according to whose norms?
I think politics can be consequential and doesn't necessarily reduce down to ethics proper. One can ponder ethics in governance, but that is different. Ultimately, it is the dignity of a person one is appealing to in ethics, and which is ignored when imposing unnecessary harms or imposing ones own criteria of what is an acceptable range of choices and harms onto another.
Consequences do matter (it is the impact of the choice of having a child that matters after all), but it is the idea of looking at consequences above and beyond the violating of the dignity of an individual which I have a problem with.
The other weakness is that it requires that people be not seen as objects, as things over which one rules. In contrast, people usually see other people as things, as their underlings, as beings to be ruled over (hence they have no qualms about procreating, or having abortions).
So your AN arguments are not fit for this world.
Moral norms. Antinatalism is the view that it is immoral, or default immoral (for there may be exceptional cases) to procreate.
I don't know why you think this is relevant since my opening comment on this was...
Quoting Isaac
... if I could bold and underline, I would. It may just drive the information into your recalcitrant skull. "In the context it's used here". In other words, not, universally the case.
All that matters for the argument is that having a desert creates an obligation in the context it's used here. I don't really know how I could make that any more simple for you.
Hence my counterargument still stands
Quoting Isaac
To deserve something does not mean others are obliged to give it to you, as I have explained numerous times. Deal with it.
So? What has that got to do with the matter at hand? Which is that it is taken, in this actual case, to imply just such an obligation.
It is a flaw in your argument that you assume the lack of desert of harm implies an obligation to actually cause a state of non-harm. It doesn't. When deserts imply obligations (note when they do, not that they always do), they do not typically also imply an obligation to avoid the opposite of that which is deserved.
Thus, to claim an innocent does not deserve harm does not (as you incorrectly conclude) imply that there is a duty on anyone to bring about the opposite (a state of non-harm).
Alternatively, if you want to claim that, in this case,...
Quoting Bartricks
...then your argument fails as I pointed out before. An innocent may deserve non-harm, but no one is under any obligation to provide it, so procreation is morally acceptable.
An interesting way to put it. While I agree with it, I would further argue that they don't deserve anything -- beyond what human beings think they deserve (or don't deserve). And the answer to that question (What do human beings deserve?) is so personal that to try to find a general, abstract principle about it -- that is, one that applies in all or even most situations -- is a fool's errand.
If a person believes that a human being deserves the powers of invisibility, or the ability to fly, or telepathy or, as Bartricks does, to live a pain-free existence -- which are all impossible -- then that person should not have kids. God bless them -- may they be happy with that choice.
The interesting question for me is why they have that belief to begin with. Why is the expectation an unobtainable one? It's like asking for a square with three sides. If living a pain-free existence is the only just existence, then sure: existence is unjust. But that's a rigged game, so to speak -- rigged to draw the same conclusion over and over again. Why? Because life includes pain -- it's part of the phenomenon of being alive.
That's why I say it's a fundamentally negative (eschewing the word "pessimistic") view of human life. It says: human life is a mistake and it is unjust because there's pain (including, especially, the pain of "innocents" -- which everyone is admittedly born). Thus, better not to be born than to be born; better not to create life than to create life. That's what leads to beliefs like "innocents deserve no harm of any kind." which then get presented as if it's a logical law of nature or "self-evident truth." It isn't; there are further assumptions upon which it rests.
Ok. But who decides what's deserved? That doesn't fall from the sky, I assume. It's not God-given. So who decides? Who decides what is deserved? You?
You want to argue from the Platonic realm of ideas -- that the laws of logic dictate it, etc. But clearly that's not working. If this is something that's as self-evident as you make it seem, it should be able to be shown and proven and as demonstrable as Newton's laws or mathematical theorems. You haven't done so yet.
What you have so far done is made the statement "this is what is deserved," and claimed that you take it as a self-evident truth. Well, OK, that's fine -- if that's what you believe, then you're 100% correct, logically and consistently, in not creating life. Who's stopping you from not having kids? Who's even arguing that you SHOULD have kids (certainly not me!)? Be happy.
But if you're going to try to make normative claims which apply to others -- like me and others on this forum -- and cast moral judgments, or attempt to persuade people not to do something, then you have been, if you pardon me, a very poor advocate. Why? Because from what I've read -- including with myself earlier in this discussion -- you're dismissive, condescending, sarcastic, and adversarial -- often to the point of contempt. That's no way to try to persuade others to stop making moral mistakes. If you have the better argument, show it. Demonstrate it. Don't hide behind Logic 101 accusations of "fallacies" and other rhetorical nomenclature; try to meet people where they are and walk them through it. Otherwise you give the appearance of being intellectually and emotionally immature, or worse: an utter fraud. You can do better than that.
So again I repeat the question above in a rephrased way: Why should *I* believe (or "think" or "conclude") that life should be completely and totally absent from harm? And why is harm the focus?
You seem to ignore my arguments.
Apologies. Im trying to engage mostly with the OP. I view your argument as a separate one. Although interesting, I havent had the time to give a careful reading.
These are metaethical issues. If you're going to reject my argument by embracing some form of individual or collective subjectivism about morality, you're welcome as then you'd also be committed to concluding that the Nazis did no wrong.
Antinatalism is a normative theory, not a metaethical theory. So if you are forced to stray into metaethics, you've lost.
Moral properties are God given, but that's no premise in my argument. My argument requires only that one recognize that persons are created innocent and that an innocent person deserves no harm (and that it is wrong - other things being equal - to create injustices). Those claims are not reasonably deniable.
Interesting. Have you read Anscombe on what we 'ought' to do? I'm somewhat persuaded by a bastardised version of her argument. 'Deserve' is just a word, and like any other word is has a meaning which is carried by its use. So if we say "John deserved a punch in the face" when John has done absolutely nothing wrong, we've not made an error in ethical judgement, we've made an error in language, that's simply not how the word 'deserve' is used, it's not used to describe punching someone in the face when they've done nothing wrong, it's used to describe the sorts of things we all commonly associated with "John deserved X".
This leaves the meaning very fuzzy, very contextual, but still not without meaning entirely. We can still say punching old ladies for no reason is morally wrong because that's the sort of activity the term 'morally wrong' is used to describe, just like the tall branching thing with leaves on it over there is the sort of thing the term 'tree' is used to describe.
So yes, a fabrication of humans, but like any linguistic practice, definitely has its fuzzy boundaries.
Quoting Xtrix
Yes. That is the most interesting question. It dogs all antinatalist arguments. Why are we reducing harm when there's no one around to benefit from the lack of harm? Harm is something to reduce so that someone can enjoy the lack of it, not something to reduce just because. I was talking in another thread, coincidentally, about the fetishisation of philosophical questions. I think this universal harm-reduction is just such a fetishisation. It's not a feeling anyone actually has, it's a principle it is possible to have and so people, of a certain ilk, will try it on, so to speak, like dressing up in Cowboy costume, just to see how it feels.
Something's turning out to be as I expected it to be using some theory and others in my community seeming to have the same experience is a pretty good measure of my knowing that theory. Why do you ask?
Quoting Bartricks
It means that which is it used for in my language community. Again, not sure why you're asking.
Quoting Isaac
I expect my wife is not having an affair with the plumber. I just expect that the pipes in our bedroom play up a lot during the day and that he really enjoys plumbing. Therefore, my wife is not having an affair with the plumber. Good. Epistemology Isaac style.
Now, how about you try and understand what I am using the word 'desert' to mean?
Weird. You've never heard people use the word 'desert' in contexts like "that murderer's death was his just desert"?
What an odd community you must have been brought up in. Still, you use the word that way now, so you must have learnt how to use it somehow. From where did you learn how to use the word 'desert' as you use it in the OP?
Then how did you learn how to use the word 'desert' as you use it in the OP?
So, if a person has done nothing whatsoever, then that person is ice creams no harm. That's premise 1.
Premise 2 is that newly created persons - which is a word that in my community we use to denote used tissue paper - have done nothing whatsoever (for they are bits of tissue paper, not agents).
And then I conclude form those premises that bits of tissue paper ice creams no harm.
Oh, and in my community we use words differently every ten minutes. Which means 3 turnips.
:snicker:
Yes, I think pretty much sums up the state of the arguments. He's resorted to talking about pixies.
:rofl: Along with tubs of lard and waffle irons. When you start to employ cooking images and supernatural fables, you lost the arguments ages ago. All the logical points made by me, you, @Xtrix, @DA671 and many others on this thread will never be acknowledged or accepted by the antinatalists. They get their jollies from the 'shock value,' they think they are causing. The result of antinatalism is clearly shown in the two clips posted by DA671. They represent organised antinatalism in the USA.
As I said you have already fully debunked them here.
S = Life is suffering
P = Life is predominantly suffering.
The Argument from Suffering for Antinatalism
1. (S [math]\lor[/math] P) [math]\to[/math] A
2. S [math]\lor[/math] P
Ergo,
3. A [1, 2 MP]
A person who hasn't done anything doesn't deserve to come to harm.
That's not controversial. You think it is. It ain't.
If someone deserves something but doesn't get it, that's bad. It's called an 'injustice'. Them's bad.
Other things being equal, we have moral reason not to perform acts that will create injustices.
Acts of procreation create such injustices. Therefore, other things being equal we have moral reason not to perform them.
It's a solid argument.
It's as solid as air. Nevertheless, it does highlight, directly or indirectly, the urgent need to alleviate suffering and stop reckless procreation.
Where have I disagreed with that proposition?
Quoting Bartricks
Yep.
Quoting Bartricks
How so?
Acts of procreation create circumstances in which innocents might come to harm. Your first proposition is that innocents do not deserve harm.
You've not shown that someone getting something which they do not deserve is an injustice.
If I don't deserve a car, but get one anyway, no injustice seems to have occurred. I just got lucky.
So if I don't deserve harm, but get harm anyway, by what precedent do you conclude that an injustice has happened rather than just that I've been unlucky?
For your logic to hold, you'd have to either demonstrate that link or hold that innocents deserve the absence of harm. The latter is something with which very few people would agree.
Maybe. I know some people feel that way, but I don't think the feeling is as universal as feeling that innocents do not deserve harm. Some people have a more 'work for your reward' kind of attitude - you only deserve the happiness you worked for. Very Calvinist, not my cup of tea, but a strong belief in some cultures.
Quoting DA671
Yes, that's exactly it. Most people, given the choice, would take existence+harms over non-existence, so existence seems a far more important gift than the mere absence of harm.
As for the intuition that preventing harms is more important, I think that this exists because most people do not need constant external intervention for happiness. As long as we don't cause significant harms to someone, people can live adequately valuable life. But since non-existent beings aren't in a state of affairs they cherish, I don't think that one should focus on just preventing harms instead of also trying to create positives.
I had a discussion on this topic a while ago here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/640059
I thought you might find it interesting.
Have a wonderful day!
If you deserve to come to harm and do not come to harm, that's bad.
And - other things being equal - we have reason not to perform acts that will create bads.
None of that is controversial and it entails that we have reason not to perform procreative acts, ceteris paribus, as procreative acts create a person who deserves no harm but will inevitably come to some.
Your reply does not challenge those claims. If you deserve to come to harmand recieve a benefit that is bad.
If you do not deserve to come to harmand recieve a benefit that is good.
If you deserve a benefit and recieve it, that is even better.
Yep.
Quoting Bartricks
Nope. Just because something is bad, does not imply anyone has a duty to avoid creating situations in which it can happen. There's no precedent for that assertion.
You went from deserts (which do often carry accompanying obligations) to merely 'bad' (which don't).
It is merely 'bad' if a person who doesn't deserve harm comes to harm. That doesn't create an obligation on anyone to avoid creating that possibility.
If innocents actually deserved a harm-free life, then you might have a better argument that an obligation accompanies that desert, but you'll get very little agreement with that proposition.
I know they deserve benefits.
They deserve no harm and they deserve a happy life.
And they won't get that. See? That's called an injustice.
The benefits are deserved. But they deserve much more.
If you saddle someone with a million dollar debt and then pay 100 grand towards it, then 100 grand was deserved. But they deserve 900 grand more!! And you deserve condemnation
The fact they deserve benefits makes my case even stronger. Jeez louise.
Read what I said again and don't attribute to me thick inferences that I have not made.
One could argue that innocent people deserve to experience some positives, so, unless one's life is completely terrible, it would be better to create them. But since we don't require absolute negativity calling many acts of procreation wrong, I believe that there isn't a good reason to accept that perfection is a necessary for justifying creating a life that would possess a sufficient amount of positives.
I'm directly quoting you. You said...
Quoting Bartricks
You then said...
Quoting Bartricks
It doesn't entail such a thing because you've merely show that the situation is 'bad' (direct quote). We are not commonly obliged to avoid creating situations where something bad might happen. We do so unproblematically all the time. If I set up a rugby club it is almost inevitable that someone will get hurt. Getting hurt if you don't deserve to is bad. No one would say I had a duty to avoid setting up the rugby club in account of it meaning a bad thing was bound to happen.
We commonly accept that bad things sometimes come along as a consequence of situations we create for other reasons. It's not commonly seen as creating an obligation to avoid creating those situations.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/640059
If an innocent person deserves no harm and deserves benefits, then they deserve a harm free beneficial life.
They're not going to get that!!!
It's like chucking someone off a bridge so they can enjoy the benefits of the pleasing view on the way down.
They deserve a harm free happy life. That is not what they are going to get. So it's shitty to do that - to create a person who will deserve far, far more than they can be given.
Furthermore, if you do not create the person you are not depriving someone of benefits that they deserve, are you?
If you create someone, then you create someone who deserves none of the harms you have just condemned them to suffer and far, far more benefits than this world can ever provide them. That's really shitty. Self indulgent shittyness. But if you don't procreate you have not deprived someone of something they deserve. Why? Because they don't exist. Do the math!
I didn't ignore the argument. There's a difference between something that should exist (ideally) vs. something still having more than sufficient value.
If one doesn't create someone, they aren't fulfilling their desires to not exist either. If the absence of the benefits is only bad if someone feels deprived, then the absence of the harms is only good if one feels relieved/satisfied due to their absence.
It's not for one person to disregard the (probably mathematically undeniable) fact that most people prefer existence in spite of facing many problems. If not creating harms is good for potential innocent beings, then it's also bad to not bestow positives. It's myopic to only think about one side of the coin.
The problem can be found in the OP:
"They don't just deserve an overall happy life. They deserve an entirely harm-free happy life."
They certainly deserve happiness and if one is capable of providing them, it would not be ethical to not do so. My point is that, even if absolute bliss doesn't exist, it doesn't lead one to the conclusion that the positives that do exist do not give us a reason to create someone. It's not all or nothing. If one is going to set up an unreasonable criteria, then one may as well say that unless life is only negative, it's better to create someone.
Yes. Here it means "a bit of the argument I've left out because it undermines my conclusion".
If your conclusion relies on all other things being equal, then it is incomplete as an argument unless you show that all other things are, in fact, equal.
With procreation it is obvious they are not, since the possibility of some bad coming about is clearly not the only consideration and so clearly all other factors are not 'equal'.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/718667
I cannot use the actual quote feature for some inexplicable reason, but the quotation marks should suffice, I think. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Quote a claim of mine. And then say why you think it is false without changing it to something else.
Do you agree that this argument form is valid:
P.
Q.
Therefore P and Q?
I don't disagree with it. I disagree with the idea that not getting that absolute good makes everything else worthless.
However, not being able to give everything doesn't mean it's better to give nothing. Just as the fact that one hasn't lost everything doesn't mean that it's not bad that they lost a lot.
Do you see how this conforms to that valid argument form:
1. Innocent persons deserve benefits
2. Innocent persons deserve no harm
3. Therefore innocent persons deserve benefits and no harms?
Don't just say stuff. Answer the question.
Yeah, I think so
Yes?
So, that means you need to deny 1 or 2.
Which one do you deny?
You realise that means you need to accept that 3 is true or qualify as thicker than a thick thing on national thick day, yes?
And now you are saying stuff. What is your case?
My "case" is that although innocent sentient beings do deserve complete happiness, it doesn't mean that creating them is wrong if they get anything less than total bliss. This is an unreasonable criteria for justifying procreation that I see no good reason to accept. Again, someone could also say that innocent people deserve happiness, and since it's only existence that gives them benefits, it's good to create them (unless their lives are permeated with nothing but misery).
an existing being who does not need the harm in order to live a decent life. A harm, howbeit, could be justified for the sake of achieving a greater good, such as pressurising someone to not behave in a way that would cause them and others misery in the long run.
However, if creating undeserved harm is bad, then creating deserved happiness is good. I believe that it's ethically justifiable to bestow that good, even if it's not complete.
Admit you can't.
Then admit you can't.
And then admit that the fact procreative acts are acts that have both of those features is a fact about them that functions as a moral negative.
Resist the temptation to ignore this argument and say something dumb like ' but benefits is good'. For then we will have to start all over again
Procreation certainly has a negative element. However, if it's good to prevent the negative, it's also problematic to prevent the positives.
I am not admitting that I am not wrong (I think).
You accept that this is true: innocent persons deserve benefits and no harms.
They not get that.
That bad.
They get some benefits and some harms.
They deserve no harms and lots of benefit.
That bad.
Act that makes bad is bad.
Procreative act bad.
Benefits good, but not enough. Not enough is bad. Bad when person who deserve lots get little. Harms all bad as none deserved. That bad. Bad and bad.
Acts that make bad are bad. We not do bad acts. They no no unless make more goods or demand too much from us.
They also get good.
Procreative act is also good because it creates a good. Since most people seem to have more experiences they value, the goodness of the act can be greater. More good and some bad is better than nothing.
Try and understand the argument. Try and understand why, despite being good, the benefits do not generate any reason to perform the act that creates them. Try.
A lot of the basis for your current argument with DA671 is deontology versus consequentialism (seemingly here of the utilitarian variety). DA671 is only using consequences and population statistics as a criterion for moral behavior. In this view, a little bit of murder justifies a greater outcome to "someone doing the moral calculation it seems?", etc. and relies heavily on the netted population's view on life at any given moment for whether an act is deemed ethically good or bad (so cannibalism is good as long as 58% of the population thinks so.. same with slavery, etc.).
I would argue that "innocent persons not deserving harm" can translate well enough to what I argue when I say "unnecessary harms".. No harm is justified whereby there was no need to ameliorate a greater harm with a lesser harm (as is the case with birth in which case inflicting inevitable harm would be wholly unnecessary to inflict for that person being affected by the outcome of procreation).
Unless there is a greater good that can come from it, not giving benefits to innumerable sentient beings cannot be ethically justified.
Again this is a mistake made by confusing desert with outcomes.
You've argued that innocents deserve more benefits than they get. Procreation therefore entails a negative (it creates undeserved harms and fails to provide deserved benefits).
But procreation entailing a negative by failing to provide that which is deserved, doesn't in any way preclude it from entailing positives based on the benefits it does create.
The fact that those benefits are less than is deserved doesn't remove their goodness. Nor does it mean their goodness is outweighed by the badness of the failure to provide deserved benefits.
Consider I deserve a small medal, but I don't get one because I've been whisked away on an all expenses paid holiday to the Bahamas which I didn't do anything to deserve.
The badness of not getting the medal I deserve is far outweighed by the goodness of the holiday.
So all you have is that 1) procreation fails to provide the benefits it ought (bad).
2) Procreation does, however, provide loads of benefits (good).
You've not shown the bad at (1) outweighs the good at (2). You've shown the good at (2) is less than is deserved. That's not the same as it being less than the badness of not getting that which you deserve.
I don't accept subjectivism, nor that the Nazi's did no wrong.
They're ethical issues and metaethical issues, sure. If you don't want to defend your argument, that's OK. But you started this thread, and put forward an argument. Then you continued, over and over again, to complain about how no one was challenging your premises. I'm doing exactly that: engaging with the argument by challenging one of your premises.
Quoting Bartricks
:smile: It would do you well to put down these sophomoric ideas about "debate," rules of debate, syllogisms, fallacies, and whatever else you've picked up from your reading or classes.
You made a statement. I didn't make the statement -- you did. So the onus is on you, if you care to persuade anyone (which I assume you do -- otherwise why bother posting in a public place?), to defend and support your statement. You don't "win" anything by default, simply by declaring a category error.
Here is the statement: "Innocents deserve a harm-free life."
That is what is being challenged, and that is what you need to flush out and support. If you can't do that, just say so. If you simply fall back on "It's self-evident, and doesn't need justification," then do so -- and we can end the conversation there. Because in that case I can say the opposite, declare it is also self-evident, and go on my merry way without having to waste any more time.
Quoting Bartricks
And yet that's EXACTLY what I'm denying, and why your argument fails to convince me. So what are you going to do about it? Simply declare me "unreasonable"? Insult me? Give up? Again, that's fine. I will simply remain completely unconvinced and go on knowing that your argument rests on nothing but personal whim about what life "should" be.
Or you can support it further. Can't be explained further? That's fine too. In that case we've reached an impasse, and I can with equal support make the claim that life, although it involves harm, is good -- and therefore creating life is good.
Definitely.
Quoting Isaac
Yes, and beyond that take it as part of their identity. Many people -- myself included at times -- want to take a generally good principle and universalize it, when every specific situation is almost always more complicated. I see this mistake in a broad range of activities, from monetary policy to poker playing.
The problem is that it's not even an argument, because it's not interested in persuading anyone and doesn't support itself in any way other than "this is a self-evident, undeniable truth" and then making up a story.
Which, by the way, is exactly what religious minded people often do. "God commands us to do x" or "God says x about y," and go on to construct a complicated narrative with corresponding proscriptions for everyone else. Yet at the heart of the matter is simply "I believe in God."
So it is for at least this line of antinatalism.
Quoting Bartricks
I think it is, yes. You declaring "it ain't" isn't an argument.
Quoting DA671
Exactly. Why not make the opposite argument, only with joy/happiness?
It's because the entire argument rests on a fantasy about life being good only if there's no harm. Which is impossible so, in other words, life is bad.
Why do you keep asking people this when, once someone does tell you which is false, you simply declare it to be self-evidently true?
The line of your debate:
You: "Don't say x, y, or z -- only tell me which premise is false!"
Interlocutor: "Premise k is false."
"No, premise k is true."
"How?"
"It's self-evidently true."
"I don't see any reason to believe it."
"That's because you're an idiot."
People live happy lives all the time, despite there being harm. So this statement is ridiculous.
True, they won't get "no harm" -- because harm is part of life. But it's equally absurd to claim life ought to be harm-free...which you do, without further explanation, support, evidence, or logic.
Quoting Bartricks
According to you and your peculiar notion of what is "deserved" in life -- namely, the impossible.
Even if you said something like "everyone born deserves to have enough food to eat," that would be at least coherent. Arguing for a "harm-free life" is like asking for a triangle with 2 sides. You never wanted a triangle to begin with. Likewise, you simply don't want life -- because a "harm-free life" is complete fantasy. Your own personal fantasy -- fine. But why come here and try to convince others not to have kids because of your own bizarre interpretation of life?
Because it makes us feel good. It's the pleasure of a clear conscience: "I didn't cause harm to anyone." For some people, it's one of the highest pleasures there is.
See also ahimsa for a more explicit take on the matter:
Why fight the antinatalists so much?
It comes down to you vs. them. And they are clearly happier than you are.
I see you've been reluctant to frame this as a matter of "my opinion vs. their opinion". You seem to be trying to argue from objective/absolute morality (which you represent and (some) others don't).
This discussion seems to have to do with antinatalism, but equally with more general issues of discussion, epistemology, and normative ethics.
The question was about _whose_ norms, not what norms.
On the grounds of what should one person's moral norms be more relevant than another person's moral norms?
Im not fighting anyone. If someone presents an argument, Im interested in understanding it. This one happens to be unconvincing and probably not worth questioning much more, given the responses.
But there I go taking for granted wrongly, Im sure that youre truly interested in an answer and not simply posturing, as nearly every interaction with you has demonstrated.
Habits die hard. Do go on about how authoritarian I am, etc.
I can only agree. The antinatalists on this thread try to preach like fundamentalists or evanhellical theists.
Their approach is pure Trumpism, in my opinion.
Like Trumpism, they Ignore all truths and valid points made by all dissenters and just keep repeating 'The innocent don't deserve harm,' as if that is a valid argument.
It does not matter that antinatalism is very very harmful or 'deserve' is a judgment call or innocence and morality are less important than the existence of life, etc.
They just ignore all truth and repeat their ridiculous claims.
They haven't even addressed the two clips posted by @DA671 because their Trumpist approach is to play down such ACTUAL examples of organised antinatalism.
The good thing about this thread is that they have been fully exposed as the misanthropes they are.
I am happy that they have no children to infect with their point of view.
Absafragginlootly SPOT ON!!!! Pure Trumpism!
If all life was ended in the universe then we would simply be back to an earlier time in the past 13.8 billion years. Life then happened, we dont know why but I for one think we are the universes' best attempt at trying to figure out what and why it is. Antinatalism would do great harm to the purpose of life.
Part of the wonder of life is asking questions about life. No questions could be asked if we were not here to ask them. This is a great harm in my opinion.
Extreme human suffering and harm can be reduced and controlled through human effort, it is utterly ridiculous and even lazy-minded to suggest that the solution to human suffering is human extinction.
Yeah!
However, intriguingly, this doesn't make natalism automatically true for there are people who're living in the direst of circumstances, such circumstances that to birth children amounts to a torture sentence for 'em, the kids.
Both natalism & antinatalism are wrong for the same reason - concluding a universal (all) from particulars (some).
That's not remotely controversial.
And it's not remotely controversial that if an act will create some undeserved harm, then that's a bad feature of an act - a feature that can be expected to create reason not to perform it, other things being equal.
It's not remotely controversial that procreative acts create a person who has done nothing.
It is the denial of any of these claims that would be controversial and apparently contrary to reason and thus that would require defence.
So the argument is valid and apparently sound. That's the very definition of a good argument.
If you are driven to having to question the very nature of morality itself or to question how anyone knows anything - the whole 'who's to say' point - then you've lost. Those are last resort 'nuclear' options for those who can't directly challenge any premise. They don't engage with the argument, for they can be made against any argument whatever that leads to a normative conclusion you happen not to hold.
Now that - that's - dogmatism. What I'm doing is arguing for a conclusion you dislike. That ain't dogmatism. Dogmatism is not about the view, it's about the manner in which it is held. Something a lot of you folk don't seem to understand. It's not what you believe, but how you believe it.
Liar. Which premise do you think is false then, eh?
Your reason tells you that if someone has done nothing they deserve to come to harm????
Its self evident that if a person has done nothing, they deserve the chance to live.
I guess that settles it. Self evidence.
Quoting Bartricks
Yet several people including myself have rejected it for many reasons. :chin:
Quoting Bartricks
:lol: Is this a nervous tic?
Quoting Bartricks
Deserves got nothing to do with it to quote Clint Eastwood.
They dont deserve anything. Things happen in life some things we call pain others pleasure. Both are part of life. To argue one deserves to live a harm-free life is exactly the same as saying one deserves non-life which is exactly what youre advocating anyway. You try to take a long way around in an attempt to justify it using whats supposed to pass for logic, when in reality its a concocted premise designed to reach the conclusion you want: dont have kids.
So all this talk about deserve and harm free rests on nothing but fantasy. Which youre welcome to hold I have no issue with that.
For others, life is very good indeeddespite your value judgments about whats deserved or whats good or bad. Your feelings do not a universal moral principle make.
If you deserve a harm free life, youre free to kill yourself. Thats a personal choice.
Kill yourself and/or dont have kids. Stop forcing your therapy onto others.
Neither deserved nor undeserved. When it comes to misfortune it's a category error to think in those terms. It is only in the context that punishment has been inflicted on the grounds that it is deserved that it makes sense to speak of it being undeserved.
Er, when it comes to procreative acts the person does not yet exist. A non-existent person can't deserve anything. So: fail. Try again.
Er, it's a premise in the argument. Christ.
Yeah, shit happens. Good point. I'm certainly being out classed.
Yeah, that's because you can't address the argument so you need to tell yourself that the arguer has a problem. Whatever helps.
You can resist the conclusion of my argument by insisting that newly born babies are not undeserving of harm.
That's fine. Now you've got a really stupid position that in any other context than this one everyone else would recognize to be stupid.
You can resist the conclusion of my argument by insisting that if an act will create an injustice, this doesn't - other things being equal - count against it.
Again, that's fine, because it's obviously false. In other contexts everyone recognizes that if an act creates an injustice that's a black mark against it. But if you want to insist that it is no kind of mark at all, then that's fine: you've lost, because now you're committed to a really stupid view.
One could resist my argument by insisting that it is solely in the context of procreation that these features cease to operate as moral negatives.
That's fine: for that's an obviously dogmatically stupid view.
One could try and 'defend' that view by arguing that we - most people - have a faculty of reason that tells them that procreation is morally okay. And that's then default evidence that it is.
Which is correct: it is. That's really the only way to respond to my argument that wouldn't amount to rational suicide: that is, that would not commit one to a view that has nothing whatever to be said for it.
But while that response gets out of the starting block - it doesn't amount to saying "I refute you thus!" and blowing your brains out - the problem is that there's really no reason to think those particular apparent representations of reason are accurate, given that virtually everyone has been brought up in the cult of the family and told repeatedly that procreation is a good thing to do.
Right, so that's a conclusion from your um, ethical reasoning :roll:? Part of the harm actually of putting someone into existence so actually adds to the AN point. Antinatalists are at least not imposing their belief. They simply try to make arguments to convince. Natalists, by default always impose. As I said earlier about impositions:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Trying to create too many people can cause damage in the long run. This doesn't mean one should not do it at all whilst keeping practical considerations into account.
Any rational person who honestly analyses the complexity of the sentient experience should realise, I think, that saying that it's never acceptable to care about the value of the positives as long as there are any harms is as ill-advised as it gets.
People frequently decide for others in order to give them a good they deserve, such as saving someone even if there's a small chance that they might not like it. We don't see this as a problem because we recognise that the aforementioned case, whilst unfortunate, should not make us forget about the majority of cases in which people would appreciate being able to have a good they couldn't have asked for. If someone says that this isn't analogous to procreation because nobody needs to be saved, then one could also point out that neither can an act that doesn't violate existing interests be considered an "imposition". Universal antinatalism, in what some could call insidious paternalism, prevents the bestowal of positives that innocent sentient beings deserve (and if it's good to not impose even if nobody benefits from it, then there isn't a good reason to think that it's not bad to not create a positives irrespective of whether or not inexistent beings need it) and could mislead innocent people into thinking that they should avoid procreation because it's an ethical obligation, even if they become miserable due to this. It hasn't been shown that the prevention of the positives is acceptable in objective terms.
It is extremely saddening that people do have to go through severe harms and be forced to endure an existence they cannot find any value in. I hope that ideas such as transhumanism and the right to a graceful exit can help reduce both of these harms significantly. But, having said that, it simply doesn't make sense to ignore one side of reality altogether. It's incredibly myopic to essentially say that all the happy people that exist essentially didn't deserve to exist due to mere presence of the negatives. And if not creating someone respects their autonomy, it also diminishes it to a greater degree by not giving a good that cannot be solicited prior to one's existence. One's subjective perspective that conveniently misses the value of optimism and the presence of the negativity bias cannot be considered a valid justification for preventing all happiness. "Oh, you enjoy life despite suffering (perhaps more than me)? That's irrelevant, since you should not be here due to the fact that creation also entails some risks," is hardly a pleasant sentiment.
Unforeseeable benefits also matter. The person might think that a the individual would just get through life, but it's quite possible that they would have inestimably valuable experiences that would stem from their unique perspective, such as the joy that can come from the pursuit of knowledge and the happiness that is experienced by those who really care about meaningful relationships. This "known unknown" isn't as infrequent as some might think.
Yes, crude utilitarianism can be refuted in many ways, one of which involves appealing to desert (a utilitarian doesn't recognize that innocents do not deserve harm and thus will not count the fact an innocent is suffering any differently to the fact a guilty person is suffering). It probably isn't worth debating with someone who thinks like that, as they're an ethical idiot and not a source of ethical insight (or a dogmatist more committed to a theory than to following evidence).
It's not directly relevant to my desert based argument - which assumes the reality of desert, something utilitarians are committed to denying - but even utilitarianism seems to imply antinatalism.
First, by any objective standard, humans create far more misery than happiness overall. So, if our one moral task is to maximise happiness and minimize suffering, then stopping breeding would seem to be enjoined (of course, so would suicide - but that's utilitarianism for you!).
Second, if one arbitrarily excludes animal interests from mattering - and as utilitarians are typically very stupid and crude, one imagines that many of them will see no problem with making such arbitrary exclusisons - then it looks as if the theory will imply the opposite: that we ought to start breeding voraciously as 40 billion lives that are barely worth living will achieve in aggregate more happiness than, say, 1 billion much happier lives. And it's the totals that count for these berks.
Since there is no evidence that most people dislike their lives, empty assertions and projections fail to demonstrate that utilitarianism leads to antinatalism. It certainly could someday, but it is not this day.
Driven by an unreasonable disdain for a particular view, a few individuals might mistakenly think that utilitarianism entails that suicide is good. However, this is an absolutely ludicrous assertion. Firstly, we have no good reason to ignore the innumerable positive experiences that people have which seem to matter more than the negatives for most people. Ending everything would hardly be a good way to increase happiness. Reckless procreation is indeed problematic. Nevertheless, it can definitely possess value if done in a reasonable way.
As expected, some people would rather deal with extreme thought experiments rather than the real world. Both forms of utilitarianism, negative and positive, can lead to absurd conclusions after a certain point. Those negative utilitarians who only care about reducing harms might have to say that a world wherein there are many people experiencing some harms along with a decent amount of benefits is worse than one in which the total amount of harms and people are less, even though the individuals have horrible lives. Crude deontologists should be fine with the end of countless innocent lives due to their uncritical attachment to a particular principle. Rational thinking about ethics requires thinking about various factors, including intentions, the gulf between theory and praxis, and consequences. Mindless procreation might not be a demand if non-existence has no negative/positive value and cannot be better/worse (as I tend to think). Additionally, too much of anything can be a problem. Practical limitations have to be kept in mind.
Anyway, this has been an interesting thread. I hope that you and the others present here have a pleasant day!
Ok so there goes your argument.
A baby doesnt deserve or not deserve anything either. Deserve in this context is meaningless. That you dont want to believe that, despite multiple people explaining it to you, is your issue.
No, the act of procreation creates a person - a person who deserves more than they can possibly be given and who deserves no harm (yet will be harmed).
So the act of procreation creates injustices - bads - that an actual person will suffer. And that's a feature that, when an act has it, operates as a moral negiatve.
By contrast, the act of not procreating creates no person and does not deprive a person of anything they deserve.
Up. Your. Game.
Not even that interesting; rather boring, actually. Listening to people come up with elaborate, circuitous ways to justify their interpretation of life as a mistake isnt all that interesting.
They meet a sick man, or an old man, or a corpse -- and immediately they say: "Life is refuted!" But only they are refuted, and their eyes, which see only one side of existence. Nietzsche
But how do you know it is boring? Says who? You? I think you just resent the thread.
I think they deserve the power of invisibility myself. That life doesnt provide them that is completely unjust, in my view hence I wont have kids.
Quoting Bartricks
It deprives them of joy and happiness.
Quoting Bartricks
How about pretending to be an adult for a few pages?
An attempt at wit? You really nailed me, I guess. Bravo. 10 points for you and your game.
There's no them. They don't exist. Never have. To be deprived of something one must exist (or, more controversially, at least have existed at some point)
Quoting Xtrix
I was pretending to be a professor frustrated at his lazy students. And I wasn't pretending..
If one needs to exist in order to be deprived of something (and this is supposedly why the absence of happiness isn't bad), them one also needs to exist in order to gain from the absence of harms. I've tried my best to elucidate this to @Bartricks and others. However, people ultimately have to decide for themselves.
Yes, because youve definitely shown yourself to be professorial.
Self evident.
Anyway Nice try at dolling up your feelings that life is a mistake.
:smile: Yeah, best leave the professor to his highly logical and super-complicated arguments.
A very stable genius.
Yes, one needs to exist in order to be deprived of something.
[quote="DA671;718976" them one also needs to exist in order to gain from the absence of harms[/quote]
Yes, where have I denied that?
I never said that there was any denial. I was focusing on the point that if creating happiness requires prior deprivation, then preventing suffering should require the presence of satisfaction. Otherwise, all one has is an inconsistent framework.
Thank you for the discussion, everyone.
Why did you say that given nothing I have argued implied otherwise?
To be deprived of something, one needs to exist. That's something I think its true, not false.
To be deprived of something one deserves, one needs to exist. Again, that's something I think is true, not false.
To be benefited by something, one needs to exist. That's something I think is true, not false.
To deserve something one needs to exist. That's something I think is true, not false.
So why are you pointing these things out? Nothing i have argued implies otherwise.
You need to take a bit more time to understand the argument I am making and not decide it's equivalent to some gobbledigook of your own invention.
If all one is saying is that non-existence is "neutral" (not good or bad), then in that case, I would say that choosing a state that (overall) can have more good than bad is better than a valueless one.
I believe that I grasped the essence of your arguments a long time ago. Unfortunately, an obstinate desire to single-mindedly focus on one aspect of existence can be deleterious.
I think that to deserve something you need to exist.
So, to deserve a benefit, you need to exist.
And to deserve not to be harmed, you need to exist.
Nothing in my case assumes otherwise. You just can't understand the argument.
Shall I do us?
D-70IQ: Hello Bartricks Bank Manager, I would like a loan of $100m to start my Crayon Warehouse business. Giant hangers devoted entirely to selling Crayons. Red crayons. 'Just Crayons" it will be called. Or perhaps "Just Crayons (Red)".
Bartricks: I've looked at your projections for your Crayon Warehouses and the income you expect them to generate is very small, given that there's scant demand for Crayons and you're going to be building gigantic warehouses devoted entirely to selling them (and in some cases you'll be building 2 such warehouses within half a mile of each other). So, it just seems to be an absurd business and it'll never generate enough revenue to pay back the $100m you want me to lend you.
D-70IQ: but in the first year it'll generate $1,200 dollars. That's money. Money good.
Bartricks: yes, but the interest payments alone on the $100m will be $12m and replaymens will be another $12m. So you need to generate revenue of $2m a month to be solvent, not the $100 dollars you expect to earn. It's just an unbelievably dumb business. I don't really know why you're wasting my time with it.
D-70IQ: but my point is that it'll generate $1,200 a year. That's positive money. Money is positive. It'll generate it. $1,200 from crayon sales.
Bartricks: yes, I know that. I haven't disputed that money is good and that your business will generate $1,200 from crayon sales. That's not at issue. The point is that you need to generate revenue of at least $24m a year for the loan to make sense.
D-70IQ: you mean you don't think $1,200 is worth anything? That $1,200 is not worth having? If it's worth having, then it's worth racking up $100m of debt to generate it, isn't it!
Bartricks: no, it isn't. If you need to generate $100m of debt to generate $1,200 of revenue, then you've got a shite business.
D-70IQ: Clearly you are incapable of understanding me. I am going to take my trolley of belongings next door to Xtrix bank instead. They understanding me there. They lent me $8billion to start my chain of 'thump in the face' shops where you can get thumped in the face for a fee. It lasted a week and generated $20 from one confused customer who now suing me for $20m for broken nose. $20 good.
If one is saying that not creating someone is better, they are essentially saying that there would be future innocent beings who would deserve to not be harmed (and they will be harmed to varying degrees), so it's better to not create them (even though they do not exist yet). In this case, one could also say that potential/future people also deserve happiness, so it is better to create them (even though they will only start deserving the good once they exist).
You don't seem to care about understanding others, which is tragic.
If one simply wants to assume that the negatives would always outweigh the positive even if innumerable people (whose perspectives one doesn't share), then it's no wonder that they would gleefully ignore anything contrary to what they believe.
Utilitarian becomes a guise for backing ones preferences. Oh... not THOSE conclusions.. but just THESE conclusions.
Even more striking is how people don't understand the Benatarian asymmetry. Imposition only happens to those who are born (collateral damage only works one way.. by being born).
They also don't understand basic language use of future conditionals (something is a possible state of affairs in the real world versus things that can never be a state of affairs, like meeting a leperchaun).
They also don't understand cause and effect (these conditions lead to that harm).
Funny, how in all other parts of basic conversation, they would most likely understand these concepts.
You're tragic.
An act that doesn't violate existing interests and reduce one's well-being doesn't appear to be a harm/imposition, but that's not a particularly popular view, so I wouldn't mind one not accepting it. However, if impositions are a reality, then so are the benefits. Ineffably powerful appreciation can only come through birthjoy that innocent sentient beings deserve as much as they deserve the absence of harms to the greatest degree possible. I refuse to accept that making the good collateral damage for the sake of achieving a pessimistic agenda is ethical.
I don't care about fictional characters. The fact that something will happen in the future does not show that its absence is good/bad prior to its existence. If it can be the latter, it can also be the former.
The only thing that needs to be understood is that creating a person only causes them to exist. For the action to be a harm/benefit, it would have to negatively/positively affect someone's well-being. Considering that we have no evidence that inexistent souls are desperate to exist or to avoid existence, it does not seem like creation can be good/bad for the person (though it could definitely impact those who do exist). Also, if one wants to talk about cause and effect so much, perhaps they should also think about the fact that one also causes a plethora positives to exist. Lastly, I think that responsibility should be ascribed in a reasonable manner. Surely, it wouldn't make much sense to blame the big bang for a car accident that happened yesterday simply because the Earth wouldn't exist if it were not for the big bang.
It's humourous (but more sad) that perfectly rational people fall prey to the trap of extreme pessimism.
No it isn't.
Are you a troll? I am not addressing you and we have been through all of this. If you can't predict what I am going to say by now, so be it.
Who says? How does anyone know anything? Everything's subjective. Concept. East.
Also, it was never my intention to appear to be "a person who makes a deliberately offensive or provocative online post." Forums are meant for discussions, and I try my best to avoid saying anything offensive. I apologise if anything I said did come off as being rude or needlessly provocative.
Those two shouldn't go together, so the first clause is not supported by the second :wink: .
Edit: Here is an explanation in case you have any doubts. What I meant was that I am aware of what your response will be, but you (or someone else) should not be too happy about this (and it's quite natural to hope that someone would accept your claim if they know it) because the response has been (in my opinion) and will be (most probably) wrong due to its fundamental flaws that stem from its inability to recognise the worth of the positives.
Indeed. One of the perils, I think, of creating such a complex system as language is that it has the facility to create such grotesque castles in the air which we might then become so enamoured of for their intricate architecture that we'd rather not pay any attention to their gossamer foundations.
Do you think people would still feel that pleasure on a planet empty of all human life bar them? Would they look around a fell good that they're causing no harm? Personally, I doubt that, and what little information can be gleaned from isolation studies does not yield any evidence of contentment at having caused no harm.
This is indeed all valid and sound. It soundly proves that there is a negative aspect to procreation, that it creates a situation in which there will be undeserved harm which is a bad thing.
No explain why that is an argument for antinatalism.
Since literally all decisions are a weighing of positives and negatives, and you'd have to be moron to assume any decision in the real world were possessed of only one single factor, to make the above into an argument in favour of antinatalism, you'd have to show the badness you've identified is sufficiently bad to outweigh the goodness of the many other factors (plus the badness of some of those many other factors). As @Xtrix and others have pointed out, you can't have the goods of life without those harms, so you need to carry out this weighing exercise.
Otherwise all you've done is shown that prospective parents ought consider how much harm their children might come to as one of the factors when deciding whether to procreate. I don't think anyone would disagree with you there.
What and how much are the charges for playing the game of life? Say it's -p (entry fee is in pain - how much pain qre you willing to bear?)
What's the probability of winning (happy life, +h)? Say w%
What's the probability of losing (miserable life, -p) ? 1 - w% = l%
The expected value if you play = [math]w\% \times h + l\% \times -p[/math] = (say) r [return]
The game of life is worth playing only if r > 0!
The antinatalists are happy running around their hamster wheels. Let them run, don't engage their panto responses of 'oh yes it is.' The oh no it isn't group.' won the argument 20 pages ago. As soon as their argument has been debunked, they should get no more responses.
@DA671 provided evidence of what they become over time with the two clips he posted. The antinatalists here can either join with evil people like the horrors in those clips and they can then look forward to a future of being watched by the authorities or they can continue to make their useless and harmless white noise inside large empty vessels.
They don't reproduce and their arguments are easily debunked. They are thankfully on a path to the extinction of their own lineage.
They soon enter a mania of repeat, repeat, repeat no matter how many times they have been debunked.
They are miserable misanthropes who pay every day because they have condemned themselves to be joyless husks, as to be otherwise, simply confirms their hypocrisy.
Their antinatalism will ensure their self-imposed suffering and despair, so let them run around their wheels and be thankful that you are not infected with their dimwitted point of view.
All good people prove these misanthropes wrong every day by experiencing joy, happiness wonder almost every day. We and those of us that have children can share in that fantastic experience and we can observe the misanthropes running around on their wheels to nowhere. They inherit the wind and because most people are good, they also have our pity.
Meantime, we will continue to work hard to alleviate all significant forms of human suffering.
The useless antinatalists will do nothing to help stop human suffering but they are a tiny useless minority. Thankfully we can develop better politics and better technologies which will reduce human suffering in the future. I predict that human reproduction will continue!
I know that. That's because you are one of life's celebrants and you are not a miserable misanthrope like the antinatalist is.
I disagree with universal AN, but, as I have explained ad nauseam, I do believe that it can have value in making people realise the necessities to take suffering and procreation more soberly. I hope that you have a good day/night!
What people say and what they feel inside can be very different. The antinatalists in the video clips you provided hate themselves and everyone else. The antinatalists on this thread express misanthropic, pessimistic, miserable viewpoints on life. Hate is a very strong word and whether or not a particular individual is more full of hate than any other emotion is only ever in the judgment of others.
I agree that nothing typed by the antinatalists on this thread warrant them being declared as hateful as the creatures in the two clips you posted but they are miserable misanthropes in my opinion and as you yourself stated:
Quoting DA671
Yeah, in the same way as Donald Trump genuinely seemed to care about his followers. :lol:
Yeah, you can get many examples of people who will only go so far with their dodgy ideas and no further, especially when they see the more extreme examples of their dogma in practice. BUT also we must be ever cautious as there are many strange bedfellows in the realpolitik. Do you remember how the Nazis murdered Ernst Roehm and many of his brownshirts. The nefarious will happily sacrifice their own to gain some overall advantage or stronger position.
I agree, it's possible!
Humility has its place as long as you don't become a carpet that the nasties can just walk all over.
I hope that beneath all that humility you have a scary physical roar that the nefarious will clearly hear if they push you too far.
Still, it's true that one does need to (for now, anyway) know certain other skills. I hope that I can learn them to a sufficient degree whilst also striving towards the quite lofty goal of achieving humility. All I know is that there's a long road aheada road sprinkled with many potholes. Yet, I am grateful for the lamp posts I have found along the way :)
:up:
Even as an atheist, I respected and greatly valued the non-violent civil disobedience approach of the Mahatma. But the Nazis would have slaughtered him and all of his followers and would have taken India by force easily, if the wonderfully humble Mr Gandhi was running it during a Nazi invasion. Sometimes humility works but you need a lot more in your toolbox to deal with the nasties.
But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment. Forgiveness adorns a soldier...But abstinence is forgiveness only when there is the power to punish; it is meaningless when it pretends to proceed from a helpless creature....
But I do not believe India to be helpless....I do not believe myself to be a helpless creature....Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
We do want to drive out the beast in the man, but we do not want on that account to emasculate him. And in the process of finding his own status, the beast in him is bound now and again to put up his ugly appearance.
The world is not entirely governed by logic. Life itself involves some kind of violence and we have to choose the path of least violence.
My creed of nonviolence is an extremely active force. It has no room for cowardice or even weakness. There is hope for a violent man to be some day non-violent, but there is none for a coward. I have, therefore, said more than once....that, if we do not know how to defend ourselves, our women and our places of worship by the force of suffering, i.e., nonviolence, we must, if we are men, be at least able to defend all these by fighting."
Mahatma Gandhi
Source: https://www.mkgandhi.org/nonviolence/phil8.htm
:strong: :smile: :up:
Whats the price paid for a non actualized happy life? And now the price paid for the other? Who bears the collateral damage?
Slippery slope
Cherry picking
Hasty generalizations
We must fear leftists because some crazy minority might agree with Stalin or Mao. :roll:
The math speaks for itself! I made a boo-boo but I fixed it (I think). Have a dekko and report any errors to me please. Danke!
The math assumes it's possible to decide whether to be born as a human on Earth. The catch is the veil of ignorance - you have no control over those factors that make the difference betwixt a happy life and a sad one!
A few salient points need to be clarified: The w% and l% matter and so does +h (the amount of happiness) and -p (the magnitude of suffering).
No but Im serious. Look at the question again. Also this utilitarian calculus Who benefits from greater blah blah?
If the odds are in favor of a pleasurable existence, the person who decides to play the game of life wins :party: . If the opposite, the player loses :cry: !
We need to know the values of p, h, w% and l% to come to a definitive conclusion monsieur.
Please note, my math's a bit rusty and so cum grano salis please. Sorry if this was a waste of your valuable time. Not intended. Beginner here!
So, "Who" loses if they are not born? Paying attention to "Who", the actual referent?
Also, "Who" is the beneficiary of the "greater number of people for greater happiness"? Besides the individuals that have happiness, why does the aggregation matter? It's a third-party equation that doesn't benefit from the pooling of happiness. Happiness is simply obtained by individuals.. No other entity becomes "greater" as a result of more happy people.. Ethics obtains at the level of person, not abstract equation of aggregation.
Absolute numbers would be difficult to ascertain, but I believe that everyday experience is adequate to tell us that for a nom-trivial amount of people that almost certainly forms a significant majority of people, the returns are greater than the loss.
Nobody loses if they don't exist and neither do they win. I do not think that one needs total utilitarianism in order to reject the claim that bestowing happiness can have value. I do believe that instead of filling up an abstract bar, the actual well-being of the individuals matters more, which is why I am more sympathetic to average utilitarianism/a person-affecting view. The former is obviously impersonal, but it seems to be more concerned with the actual happiness/suffering experienced by individuals. Ergo, one should focus on the % of h experienced by each individual (p) rather than the % of p having any amount of h.
Quoting DA671
I do agree with your point that antinatalism opens a gateway to promortalism. This is arguably an argument against the spreading of antinatalist views, as opposed to antinatalism in and of itself. I think @schopenhauer1 is right that it is the absolute consequentialists that would have to go through the gateway, and as long as you have overriding principle/s such as sanctity of life and/or consent, you are not affected by the criticism.
Kudos for admitting this:
Quoting DA671
@universeness play the ball and not the man.
:clap:
This is not sports, this is not a ball game!
You follow the antinatalists into their nonexistance if you wish, I for one will not go down that rabbit hole.
I see this more as his last hope. If he cant maintain at least that then he's a gonner!
I would suggest that is down to your ability to be generally logical and pragmatic rather than originating from your support of responsible procreation. If the universe was not something then there would be nothing and we could not comment.
We and the likes of us will always be here to welcome the newborns and do our best to help nurture and protect them while we watch the antinatalists run on their hamster wheels towards their own oblivion having lived lives where they were more useless to their fellow humans that they could have been if they had not surrendered to ridiculous miasma such as antinatalism.
As I said before, we are short of many wonderful creatures such as Pandas, Snow Leopards etc. they would be a much better use of base RNA and DNA compared to wasting it on antinatalists.
How do you get from this (on another thread):
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
To this (on this thread):
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
I agree with Nietzsche: kind of pathetic. Let them to it!
A bigger hamster wheel for the AN crew could be good for them. More space for the runners and each rotation would take longer and keep them too busy to create boring, tedious threads like this one. The only value that can be garnished from this waste of everyone's time is the fact that the antinatalists have been exposed as vacuous!
Btw, I forgot to mention that a void is something not nothing you cannot infer such as 'impersonally bad' if there is nothing. You cant even label 'nothing' because there would be no ability to label.
I agree that it seems likely that a state without an actual person doesn't seem like it has any value/disvalue.
I use void in a metaphorical way to refer to nothing. I suppose some would say that even though nobody can say something in the context of nothing, but it's just better that a world with sentient beings who can experience happiness exists rather than one without them.
Of course it is, The question would become what is the purpose of the universe without lifeforms that can ask questions? All the antinatalist will respond with is the typical Trumpian response to points that debunk their reasoning. They respond with 'that's not relevant to my OP.' I think they then go back to their corner insert their thumb into their favourite orifice and then just :cry: about all the human suffering that exists whilst probably making zero effort to help alleviate the suffering of anyone. They advocate the ridiculous solution of extinction!!!! :rofl:
I see now the import of your question, but as I said earlier, the assumption I'm making in my mathematical formulation of the issue is that we exist prior to birth and can decide to either play or not to play (the game of life). In other words there's a person who does lose/win the game depending on the values of the variables involved in the calculations.
In my humble opinion, it's a better way to tackle the subject as nonexistence (pre-birth) is a complex concept and better avoided - more trouble than it's worth.
In other words you, like me and most rational people think that the antinatalist solution is not only wrong, it is utter nonsense and ridiculous and vacuous. I could go on but I know you will prefer to stop at the word wrong and you may even want to reduce it to 'misguided but well-intentioned in its wink towards responsible population control.' Too much window dressing for my tastes I would rather call antinatalism what it truly is, insipid and vile.
Morality is subjective.
It isn't individually or collectively subjective. Those are stupid views only held by those who haven't studied ethics and realized how dumb those views are and how fallacious the reasoning that leads people so confidently to embrace them (so, you know, virtually everyone).
But it is subjective because there are 3 kinds of subjectivism, not 2. The third kind - divine command theory - is true.
Now, those are metaethical claims of mine not relevant to this thread, as this thread is about a normative issue.
It requires that certain evaluative claims be true. It does not require one to subscribe to a particular theory about what the truth makers of evaluative claims are.
So, the claim that innocents do not deserve to come to any harm is an evaluative claim. All my argument requires is that it be true.
Which it obviously is.
It does not require that one take a stand on what kind of fact makes it true. Some think evaluative truths are made true by facts about non natural features and objects; some think they are made true by natural features and objects; and some - including me - think they are made true by divine features. Doesn't matter: what matters is that the claim is true, not what kind of fact makes it true. Why? Because if it is true, then regardless of what made it true, my antinatalist conclusion will follow.
The ceteris paribus clause is important.
Lots of acts that are morally permissible have the feature in question. That's the point you think is vitally important and that you think I've somehow overlooked. You think that because you think I'm a "moron". But only a moron would think I'm a moron. And I am obviously aware that lots of acts have the same negative feature.
But those acts that share the negative feature yet are not made overall wrong by it have moral positives that are not shared by procreative acts.
For example, just as it is bad if an act creates some undeserved harm, it is good if it prevents some too. Sometimes this will make such acts right overall.
Is that the case with procreative acts though? Nope. They just create large amounts of undeserved harm. They don't prevent larger amounts of undeserved harms.
Sometimes an act with the bad feature will prevent the injustice of someone not getting a benefit they deserve. That's a good feature, sometimes good enough to make the act right overall.
Is that the case with procreative acts? Nope. First a) the deserved benefits they create are less than the person they create deserves and so we have an injustice overall, not justice promotion; and b) if the act is not performed there does not exist a person who is being deprived of the deserved benefits the act would otherwise have created.
And on and on it goes. Procreative actions have an important morally negative feature, as you now recognize. It's not a trivial unimportant feature - they create huge injustices for another person. That's a very morally significant bad feature and only a moral idiot would think otherwise. That same crude moral idiot might think that unless it necessarily makes any act that possesses it wrong, then there's nothing to worry about. But that's as thick as thinking that because unattended flames do not always lead to housefires there's no need to blow out the candle that's on the couch.
Here's a job for you: try and come up with an action that creates a big injustice for another and that you can easily not perform that is nevertheless obviously morally permissible and that isn't plausibly made morally permissible by its possession of good features that procreative acts lack.
:up: I'm away to have a nice night of alcohol, fun, joy, happiness and good banter with friends. There will be a little suffering as well tomorrow morning. Worth it! I am sure my friends will be entertained as well when I tell them about the recent ravings from the antinatalists! Most of them have children so when I told them about the existence of antinatalism, they have stated that they would like to meet one of these antinatalists and see if they were brave enough to call them immoral for having the children they love, face to face.
I told them that In my opinion, they would be far too scared to do that.
:ok:
Educated, well-to-do folks are opting to remain childless or have only small families.
A fortiori the poor should be antinatalists through and through. They are decidely not - the largest families are seen among the economically backward. However, the reason (distributing the suffering) squares with antinatalism (it isn't despite :sad:, it's because of it).
Quoting Bartricks
I guess I thought of divine command theory as objective morality rather than a subset of subjective morality. In this context, it appeared like you had changed your mind from morality being subjective, to it being objective.
Objective - in this context - means 'exists extra mentally'. And subjective means 'exists in the mind alone' (it means 'made of subjective states', and those are essentially mental).
Divine command theory is a form of subjectivism. It is just that as the subject in question is not one of us, moral norms become as external to us as they would be if morality were objective.
External to us and 'objective' do not mean the same, but are often conflated. If something is objective, it is external to us. But if something is external to us it is not necessarily objective. Most reason poorly and cannot quickly see this, hence the conflation.
Now that you know my views are well thought through and consistent, address the argument in the OP
Quoting Bartricks
Objective morality is all I've ever heard theists argue for.
Florida State University's Department of Philosophy says:
"One of the primary advantages of Divine Command Theory is that it answers why morality is objective. Morality is not just the sum of everyone's opinions about what is right and wrong, but the buck stops, so to speak, with God's views on what is right and wrong. So even though people can disagree about morality, God ultimately determines the content of the moral law".
Source: https://philifefsu.org/its-all-about-god-divine-command-theory/ (You have to click on "It's Not Up to Us" further down the page).
So? You've still not demonstrated anything about the degree of this injustice. Some injustices are only minorly bad, some injustices are monstrous. Simply pointing out that the goods of life are insufficient to outweigh the injustice is not evidence that they are insufficient to outweigh the badness this injustice has (which might only be very minor).
Quoting Bartricks
Typical of the selfishness of antinatalists. The rest of us non-sociopaths are happy to consider benefits to others as worthy of taking into consideration weighing moral harms.
Quoting Bartricks
Agree.
Quoting Bartricks
Agree.
Quoting Bartricks
Disagree. Just as someone only deserves harm if they've done something bad, they only deserve a happy life if they've done something good.
Quoting Bartricks
Disagree. They only deserve a harm free life, for the reason already given.
Quoting Bartricks
Agree.
Quoting Bartricks
Disagree. I don't believe they deserve a happy life, for the reason already given. They also don't deserve any harm, but I believe harm can be made up for with pleasure (e.g. prick of a needle to be irresistible to women, meet the woman of your dreams). This would not be an injustice. No debt would be owed.
Quoting Bartricks
Disagree. An overall happy life is more than what they deserve.
Indeed. But it would create a person whose existence would bring enormous benefits to the other humans already in their community.
It takes a particularly selfish outlook not to even consider that as a relevant moral value.
The person deserves more benefit than they recieve. More. The shortfall represents an injustice.
If you borrow 1m and make 500grand, you have made a loss.
You want to keep emphasizing how good 500grand is.
Yes. But you racked up 1m to generate it. That was stupid. You can keep going on about how you made 500 grand until you are blue in the face, you're still a shite business person, you just don't recognize it.
In this metaphor the 500grand is the benefit that a life confers on a person, and the 1m is the desert of benefit that was incurred to generate it (in case you didn't realize).
If you think DCT is a form of objectivism then you are not using that term as I do. Indeed, I think you would be unable to provide a clear definition of the term. But that's semantics. You accused me of inconsistency. I took the trouble to explain to you something I had already explained in one of the quotes from me. And now you are simply ignoring what I have said.
Fine.
I wish we had data to work on. Methinks happiness & wealth are strongly correlated which makes the paradox even more baffling. Happy people don't want or want fewer children.
Yep. That'll probably be why I said...
Quoting Isaac
So tell us. How bad is that injustice?
If I don't get my fair share cake at the village fete, that's an injustice. It's a very very minor one. If a multiple rapist walks free, that's also an injustice. A very very monstrous one.
All you're doing is pointing out that an injustice has occurred. I agree.
Now the discussion about how bad an injustice it is, and whether that badness outweighs the other benefits of procreation (such as the benefit to others).
No, Isaac, for you then proceeded to bang on about the benefits that life confers on the liver, yes? So, you didn't understand the point, did you?
That's like banging on about the $500 grand you racked up $1m to generate. Can you see that? Do you understand yet? The benefits that befall the liver of the life are all deserved - but they're LESS than the person deserves.
So, once more, if you rack up $1m of debt to make $500 grand, you're a shite business person. And if you think the $500 grand is profit, you're an idiot. It's not profit. You're down 500grand. You made 500 grand - but you made it at $1m cost.
Now, if you create a life, then you've created a debt. And it's a debt that isn't going to be paid off, is it? For the innocent deserves a harm-free beneficial life (pssst, this is the point where you forget that you said the argument establishing this was sound and we start all over again).
So, to create a life is to create a debt that can't be repaid. It's to rack up $1m of debt to do something that was always going to generate no more than 500grand. (For it is not in dispute that life here does not take the form of a totally harm-free life of benefit).
You are either incapable of understanding the point, or you're just willfully misunderstanding it because the conclusion is inconvenient to you. I don't know which it is. (And note, if you want once again to return to insisting that an innocent does not deserve any benefits, then you've made your task even harder, because desert adds moral value to benefits.....that is, it is better, morally speaking, for a person to receive a deserved benefit than an undeserved one).
So, it's a big black mark against procreative acts that they create a great injustice. They seem, if we focus on the person who is created by them, to be big moral loss makers. And to overcome those losses you'd need to locate a lot of moral positives (and remember, the benefits the procreative act confers on the person who is created can't be counted among them - if you ask 'why' then you haven't understood the point above; they've already been taken into account).
Now, what are those great other positives that such acts create? Perhaps all the good we do to other animals? Oh, shit, that's not going to work is it? What are the moral positives - the great goods - that procreative acts generate that are capable of overcoming the moral negatives?
Note too, that in this thread I am focussing on 'one' moral negative that procreative acts possess - one that has been overlooked.
They have lots of moral negatives. Lots. The one I am highlighting here is novel. But they have lots of other moral negatives. They're not consented to, for instance. And they cause untold harm to other sentient creatures. And they cause a person to die. And so on.
Uh huh. So is $500 grand valueless? No.
If you were comparing the scheme you outline to one in which $400 grand remained would it be a better or worse scheme? Better.
The injustice (or in your example's case, bad business practice) is irrelevant to the outcome. The outcome can be valued separate to the injustice.
If I don't get all the cake I deserve, that's the same injustice as not getting all the bananas I deserve. But since I like cake and I don't like bananas, the value of those two injustices is not the same.
All you've shown is that because we get less benefit than we deserve, and injustice has occurred, which is a bad thing.
What you've not taken into account is that those benefits have a value other than their role in the injustice. Their worth is not accounted for solely by the degree to which they were deserved. The goods of life may still outweigh the bads in value, even if they don't in desert, because the degree to which I deserve something and the degree to which I value it are not the same measure.
This is bare assertion. You've established they create an injustice. You've provided no argument at all that it is a 'great' injustice. You've not given any mechanism for measuring the scale of injustice, nor have you located this particular injustice on any relative scale.
Quoting Bartricks
Nope. You've shown they seem to be moral loss makers. Again, you've provided no measurement mechanism so have given no argument at all that they are 'big' moral loss makers.
Quoting Bartricks
False. You've confused the value of benefits with the degree to which they are deserved. If I get £1 where I deserve £10 an injustice has occurred, the £1 is considerably less than I deserve. This has no bearing whatsoever on the value of £1. You've taken into account only the degree to which they are deserved (more than is provided by life, generally), this is not the same measure as the degree to which they are valued.
Deprivations are more but not total: Creation isn't ethical. One happy day doesn't erase every other bad experience.
Satisfaction is more but not total: Creation is ethical. Some negative experiences do not outweigh the value of countless moments of satisfaction derived from love, they appreciation of beauty, and the pursuit of knowledge.
This needs to be published in a reputed philosophical journal!
However, the truth is you spent $1 million and made only $5 grand!
:snicker:
Please, please... :smile:
And witness the majestic sights outside of the hospital!
:up:
Have a great day, friend!
Quoting Bartricks
It doesn't follow that if they get that which they do not deserve it cannot be made up for.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
An idea worth pursuing! Less is more!
Quoting Bartricks
It's not really inconsistency to change one's view on something. And I asked rather than accused.
I remembered you gave good reasoning for morality being subjective. An explanation of how you were wrong the first time could have affected my view on the matter.
And I am not ignoring what you said - I was responding directly to your question of why I thought DCT went into the objective category. I thought it was a special case, as I've only ever heard its proponents arguing that morality is objective. Further, you can forgive me, someone that barely knows what DCT is, for thinking that, when the Florida State University's Department of Philosophy also thinks its objective.
Some certainly would.
Most studies in human psychology are done on college students (many of whom major in psychology) and who participate in those studies for credit points toward the final grade. So that's one set of reasons for being skeptical about those studies being universally applicable to all humans.
Secondly, psychology studies tend to assume that all people are essentially the same; that nurture, acculturation are only skin deep. And that there is only one normal way for humans to respond to a certain external stimulus.
For those who hold those assumptions, there is nothing that would detract them from doing so ...
Except, of course, if the child is of the wrong skin color/ethnicity/socioeconomic class, has a disability, is one too many.
You keep ignoring this.
Yes, but these were not.
Quoting baker
I'm not sure what psychology studies you've been reading, but I'd be extremely surprised to find a single modern study assume that all people are essentially the same.
No it isn't. Every single harm an innocent person suffers is an injustice. How many harms do you think that is? Oh, it's all of them. That's quite a lot, isn't it?
There's no question that the injustice is huge. An innocent person gets nothing remotely approaching what they deserve.
Now, if an act is going to create a big injustice, Isaac, do you think that a) is likely to generate moral reason not to perform it, or b) is morally unimportant and can reasonably be expected to generate no moral reason not to perform it?
It's a, isn't it?
If you think that on this particular occasion, the massive injustice that procreative acts produce is one that doesn't create moral reason not to perform them, then the burden of proof is on you to provide evidence for that.
There are lots of cases where an act creates an injustice and it is nevertheless overall morally justified. But in all of those cases what's doing the work of making the act overall morally justified are positive moral features, such as that the act will prevent an even greater injustice. That's not true of procreation.
Perhaps you can just insist that procreative acts themselves are the counterexample as most people seem to have the intuition that they're morally okay.
But you've already tried that move and I asked you a question which you didn't answer, no doubt because it was obvious what the answer was and what it implied about the intuitions in question.
So, I'll ask it again. Imagine a person has been brought up in an antinatalist cult. They have been told, over and over and over and over again, that it is wrong to procreate. They have been told this by virtually everyone and in virtually every way possible. This person - like others who have been brought up in the cult - now gets the intuition that procreation is immoral. After all, that's why people try and indoctrinate people, isn't it? It works.
Now, what force does that intuition have? Would it be reasonable to think that it was good evidence of the wrongness of procreation? What do you think?
Now, when a person deserves something, that's a debt. So, when you create a person, you create a debt. They deserve a harm-free happy life.
They're not going to get anything like that.
Here's how it works. If happiness is deserved, then it's good when the person gets that happiness because it pays down a debt.
If the debt has been paid and the person gets further happiness, then that's not deserved, but it's good. It's pure good - it's profit.
Once more: when a person is created, they deserve a harm-free happy life. If they get that, then that's good because it was deserved. Good, in other words, becasue the debt has been paid. If they get additional happiness - so, if they're not just living a harm-free happy life, but a harm-free ecstatic life, then that's profit.
So, back to business school: if you borrow $10m but you only make 5m, then your business is bad. You can point out that 5m is good. But it was only good that you made 5m because it paid off half the debt. Overall the business is bad - it made a huge loss.
All you can do is keep pointing out that $5m is good. Yes, other things being equal it is. And it is good insofar as it lessens the losses you would otherwise have made. But in the larger context of a business in which you borrowed 10m to generate it, it's rubbish - the business is a bad one.
And that's procreation: it's a bad business. The moral debt that is incurred by starting it is one that it is not going to repay.
But perhaps you are addicted to gambling on fruit machines and do not understand this.
Yep. With absolutely no measure of how bad each is, and so no measure of how bad the total harm is. Just the number of them doesn't inform us how bad they are.
Quoting Bartricks
Again conflated deservedness with value.
Quoting Bartricks
Yep.
Quoting Bartricks
Yes it is. Procreation creates massive positive outcomes for the community at large which easily outweigh the minor negatives of a load of minor undeserved harms.
Quoting Bartricks
Bad at business, yes. Again that doesn't have any bearing on the value of $5m it is still worth $5m no matter how badly it was obtained in business terms. The poor business performance does not impact the value of the outcome. You're still confusing deservedness(profit/debt in your business example) with value.
Quoting Bartricks
Agreed. A bad thing.
Outweighed by the good.
Attempt to represent your antinatalist argument.
First, attempt to clarify the meaning of key terms. I understand antinatalism as a view committed to negating the statement Human procreation is morally permissible, committed to by natalism. Natalism affirms the proposition Producing human offspring is morally permissible is true. Antinatalism, on the other hand, denies the truth of the proposition. It instead affirms the negation The proposition producing human offspring is morally permissible is false is true.
Next, isolate statements.
Quoting Bartricks
(Im leaving the entire transcript simply for context. The statements in bold capture the meat of your argument.)
Argument 1: INNOCENCE
1. Human offspring are necessarily innocent beings so long as they lack the capacity to participate in social interactions.
2. The human offspring produced through procreation lack the capacity to participate in social interactions.
3. Therefore, human offspring produced through procreation are innocent.
Structuring the argument this way disambiguates the term/phrase They dont do anything, at least. It still fails to provide details regarding sufficient or necessary conditions for innocence (e.g., moral agency, gestational or prenatal developmentpostpartum development, social participation, physiological/psychological autonomy, etc). When is innocence lost? How is it lost? If we emerge randomly, without our choosing, and dependent upon external information, social influences, parents/peers, etc, for our development, then why is innocence considered lost at some arbitrary point?
Argument 2: DESERT
1. Innocent humans deserve to live a life with pleasure/happiness and free from pain/suffering.
2. The world is such that pain/suffering cannot always be avoided and pleasure/happiness cannot always be guaranteed.
3. The world, therefore, cannot provide innocent humans with the life that they deserve.
4. If the world cannot provide innocent humans with a life that they deserve, then they shouldnt be brought into the world.
5. Therefore, innocent humans shouldnt be brought into the world.
I not sure about this notion of desert. I think that a world free from suffering can be determined good on some normative views, as well as the presence of pleasure. Are you saying that the absence of pleasure is good? A type of a-symmetry take? Im not convinced that innocent humans inherently deserve anything (good or bad). Why should the universe owe us anything? Let alone a utopian existence.
Bartricks: apples are fruit.
You: so you are saying there is an apple and necessarily apple is made of the letters of the word leap spelt wrongly with two ps. Leapp. So, necessarily apples leapp. That's what you are saying.
And leaping is something athletes do. So you are saying apples are athletes. But I am not sure about that. I think there may be some athletes who aren't apples.
The first premise of your 'innocence' expresses nothing I have said.
And if a person is innocent, then they deserve no harm at all. Thus they deserve a harm free life. Which is not what they will get.
That alone implies antinatalism.
It gets worse though. For not only does an innocent person deserve no harm whatsoever, they also positively deserve a happy life. So they deserve a positively happy harm free life. Which is obviously not what they will recieve. Even a highly beneficial life will fall far short of the heavenly existence innocent people deserve.
You think innocent people do deserve to come to harm?
I am not arguing that this is a cruel world or anything like that. I am arguing that it is wrong to create an entitlement to something that you know will not be satisfied.
Just because you have a hammer that doesn't mean everything is a nail.
My argument goes through even if life here - where life is understood to be the time between birth and death - is beneficial.
If I order a coffee and a doughnut and I am only given a coffee, then I have grounds for complaint. My complaint is not that the coffee is bad, but that I am owed a doughnut. You, presumably, think that's the same as saying the coffee's bad.
Quoting Agent Smith
If you follow your statements in bold, my representation is at least compatible with your argument (e.g., They are innocent because they havent done anything They are innocent because they lack the capacity for moral interaction). Wouldnt you say the latter better avoids ambiguity and vagueness? I basically just elaborated on they havent done anything. An alternative approach would be to continue to request clarification until you sufficiently produce a clear statement. The problem with that is, im afraid, that you may instead of providing a brief explanation for what havent done anything means, will further complicate things by going on some tangent.
Do you not agree that terms such as do, done, and doing or this, that, and thing are insufficient by themselves to provide the information necessary for a comprehensive philosophical discussion? Wouldnt it be an improvement to explicitly state the full predication rather than just a verb like doing? Are you capable of tracking the statements within a dialectic? Isolate a single statement that ive made (and represent it accurately), then say whats wrong with it, and then proceed to provide an argument to substantiate your criticism. Not just say I just dont see how you think this represents my argument then fail to state what it is thats wrong and substantiate it, just to go on to spend the bulk of you time, work, and effort to deliver an unintelligible tangent of insults, straw man, and possibly pure and utter gibberish.
Quoting Bartricks
First of all, your just now introducing freely into the discussion. That was not included in your statements that i was attempting to understand. Second, your not providing sufficient or necessary conditions for innocence unless your saying has not done anything is??? Is that a necessary or a sufficient condition? And, again, what thing hasnt been done? Can you eliminate any vagueness at all there? What must not yet have been done to qualify innocence?
Quoting Bartricks
I cant grant innocence because I dont understand how you are determining or evaluating it. Im agnostic pending conceptual analysis. As far as i can tell, harm is unavoidable possibly a necessary contrast for experiencing pleasure. I dont understand where desert is necessary or possible. Who is measuring what exactly in determining what is deserved or not? I presume you are denied the pleasure of traveling via instantaneous transmission, correct? Dont you deserve that? You need to provide conceptual analysis on innocence and dessert before we can move forward in the conversation.
I have said numerous times what I mean by innocence. And it's nothing remotely similar to the claims you are attributing to me. It's surreal.
Me: it is sufficient to be innocent not to have freely done anything wrong
You: so, you mean by innocent 'capable of interacting with a snail'? Why not be clear like that?
Me: no, that's not what I mean and I can't begin to understand how you think those mean the same.i mean what I said.
You: but it is at least compatible with being innocent in your sense of the term that one is able to interact with a snail. And as snails are small and speak snailish, you are saying that innocent people are small and speak snailish. But I am agnostic on whether anyone can speak snailish, so your case is a bad one. Beep.
Me: nothing you are saying makes a blind bit of sense.
You: by a blind bit of sense I take you to mean two litres of carrot tears. Now, a snail will drown in carrot tears as you well know. So I think you have not improved your case, but conceded it. Boop.
Me: to be innocent is not to have done anything wrong. It doesn't get clearer than that.
You: I cannot grant that as I do not know what it means. Does it mean 'Paris is a place in my inner ear'? Or does it mean 'curried eels'? You see I only understand myself and sentences of my own, and so you need to write something that will prompt me to write a sentence that has the same meaning as yours. But as there is no relationship whatsoever between the meaning of your sentences and those I have to replace them with the chance of this occurring is vanishingly small. Biddle.
It is sufficient to be innocent not to have freely done anything wrong.
This is what I said in the op:
Quoting Bartricks
That's also sufficient. If you haven't done anything at all, then you haven't done anything freely.
Now, all you need to worry about is whether that's true. And it is true - obviously so.
So then next thing you need to worry about is whether innocent people deserve to come to harm. And they don't. That's also obvious.
And then you need to wonder whether subjecting an innocent person to a life here will mean that the person in question comes to some harm.
And it does.
Is it wrong to create some undeserved harm? Yes. Other things being equal: yes.
Quoting Bartricks
Another empty accusation. Which statement are you referring to? Whats the problem with it? Id be prepared to provide an argument to substantiate your criticism.
Quoting Bartricks
You havent bothered to convey your meaning with me. I havent CLAIMED anything regarding your meaning of the term. I simply have attempted to clarify your meaning and because of the surreal level of vague and ambiguous language you insist on using, I have had to resort to fumbling around in the dark to try and make sense of it. I mean, its literally my first attempt at recapitulation here. I at least established a gap we can now attempt to narrow or bridge.
What do you get out of this? Snails? really? Are you a child or a troll? I picture you as one of those shot out old men who live as a hermit in their house with 15 cats and is always, not only talking to oneself, but arguing too. I wonder if you straw man yourself as well, or are you charitable to yourself?
Quoting Bartricks
LOL! I love how you keep sneaking in terms to strengthen your sense of the term innocence! Look at your progression:
1st attempt: To be innocent is to not have done nothing.
2nd attempt: To be innocent is to not have done nothing FREELY.
3rd attempt: To be innocent is to not have freely done anything WRONG.
I mean, you know its fine to revise your meanings and views on things, right? It is just better done openly and honestly in good faith, not underhanded like. You may have not intentionally done so, i suppose. Ok, working with your latest sense of the term, What is it to have and not have freely done anything wrong? When do we cross that threshold? What is the threshold? Is there a threshold? Who determines who has or doesnt have autonomy? What determines right from wrong?
Are you able to interact with my questions? Or are you going to use humor and insult to evade from them as well?
Quoting Bartricks
Your not tracking. Im asking about the conditions (necessary or sufficient) required to be considered innocent. You keep asserting yeah its sufficient, its sufficient um, i did say sufficient Im not asking you if being innocent is sufficient that isnt even an intelligible question. Im asking what WHAT are the sufficient conditions??? Are the sufficient conditions having not freely done anything wrong? If so, im going to ask you all the same questions I did in my last response:
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Im not saying anti-natalism is false, btw. I just dont understand your argument for it. A clear conveyance or definition for each term your introducing to the dialectic would help. Even if we have concepts for the terms, it remains unclear whether or not they are compatible until we have the discussion. If you havent already come up with a consistent meaning for those terms, you may want to stop and work on that since you will likely run into inconsistencies to work out.
By not having a child you are denying the creation of a person who will laugh, love, smile, be happy, fulfilled, etc. Is it not wrong to deprive that?
So then the question is, will that person suffer more or less then they will be joyous and fulfilled. I am not going to answer that question but am merely pointing out my opinion the original post is wrong to only focus on the negatives.