• Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Life is wrong to start irrespective of circumstances. Procreation itself violates the dignity of the person born into a game of comply (must learn to play the game at least well enough) or die. It also puts them into a state of guaranteed suffering. None of this is moral to create for someone else. So..
    Why do people have children?
    — Agent Smith

    Many bad reasons one of which is the messianic impulse to be the arbiter for creating someone else a game of overcoming obstacles. No one needs to be born for X reason.

    There is no need for anyone to have to experience anything. There is nothing wrong with the state of affairs of”no person”.
    schopenhauer1

    I asked the question "why do people have children?" because, as you rightly pointed out, the reason whatever it is has nothing to do with the well-being of children. If that were the case, no one would even dream of starting a family; after all even the rich can't give any assurances on the happiness of their own offspring. And yet we all are, day in and day out, working hard so that we can be happy. A cognitive dissonance is apparent, oui? The way we live our lives indicates, beyond a shadow of doubt, that happiness is the be-all-and-end-all of life but we make babies as if that isn't true.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    But is life really about hedonism/maximizing one's pleasure? That seems like an insane way to live. "A life worth living" is a very difficult concept. I was very suicidal when my net worth was at its peak.Moses

    Good point! I've asked this question before, I'll ask it again:

    Do things have value because they make us happy or do things make us happy because they have value?
  • Jackson
    1.8k
    Do things have value because they make us happy or do things make us happy because they have value?Agent Smith

    Both.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    BothJackson

    How? An example or two?
  • Jackson
    1.8k
    How? An example or two?Agent Smith

    I value health; this is a natural need, and a value. I value philosophy--I do not have to.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    I value health; this is a natural need, and a value. I value philosophy--I do not have to.Jackson

    So, good health makes us happy because it has value and philosophy has value because it makes us happy?

    Most interesting! — Ms. Marple

    Why does good health make us happy?

    Because it has value!

    Why does philosophy have value?

    Because it makes us happy!

    It feels circular this!

    Chicken and egg problem.

    1. X has value because it makes us happy

    2. X makes us happy because it has value.

    Without value nothing can make us happy but without making us happy nothing can have value!
  • M777
    129
    Yet antinatalists LITERALLY don't do anything to ANYONE. Pushing a view versus pushing a whole life onto someone else. Let's see which one profoundly affects someone ELSE more.schopenhauer1

    Live is perceived as a positive things. If you don't, you are welcome to leave this beautiful world.
  • Moses
    218
    Good point! I've asked this question before, I'll ask it again:

    Do things have value because they make us happy or do things make us happy because they have value?
    Agent Smith



    IMO before we answer this we need to really understand this concept of happiness.

    Happiness for me can cover anything from the joy of going fast in a car or bike to the euphoria or getting drunk or high to sex, but then again you can also hear it referred to as contentment or more longer-term happiness such as an old man who's lived a long, happy peaceful life with many grandchildren who meditates to keep calm.

    I don't expect you to answer this one; this concept has been baffled philosophers for thousands of years.

    There's no doubt that we can subjectively assign value to things which make us happy, but we can also then ask whether those things are good. I might enjoy going 100mph on the freeway but whether this is good is another question.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k


    If you say Peter Hayden Dinklage is greater than Michael Jordan, it can't be based on height.
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