• Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    any thing happening to themAndrew4Handel

    Not "anything happening to them." It has to be an action upon them by another agent, or performed by them in conjunction with another agent.
  • Andrew4Handel
    2.5k
    Not "anything happening to them." It has to be an action upon them by another agent, or performed by them in conjunction with another agent.Terrapin Station

    Having a child is acting to impose experiences on someone else.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Having a child is acting to impose experiences on someone else.Andrew4Handel

    The person who lets someone into a concert hall isn't responsible for anything other than letting them into the concert hall. They're not responsible for the concert experience, for a drunk guy puking on the person, for a bomb that was planted in the hall going off, etc.

    Consent is for specific actions. And it needs to be granted or withheld to the specific, pertinent actors.
  • Andrew4Handel
    2.5k
    The person who lets someone into a concert hallTerrapin Station

    Having a child is not letting someone in. It is starting a cycle of inevitable experiences. The parent is not like a taxi driver or doorman but is literally creating a new existence and a new sentience. There is nothing trivial about it.
    This is why antinatalists exists because they recognize the onus and burden and profundity of creating someone. This can also be a reason for getting sterilized, using contraceptive or having an abortion.
  • schopenhauer1
    11k

    I think he means that other people have different considerations and evaluations of life. Not knowing what those considerations are beforehand, abstaining from procreating is violating no actual person's sense of consideration or evaluations. No actual person loses out from not being born. But having someone who is then unduly harmed, or has a negative self-report will have collateral damage enacted on them from the decision. The inaction of not procreating would simply prevent any and all collateral damage from ensuing. It also does not create its own collateral damage of depriving someone, as there is no person to feel that deprivation in the first place. I see the logic as about the same if characterized in this way. It can all be added on to the same argument, essentially- even if andrew4handel might not quite be articulating it that way, i believe it to be in the realm of what he is talking about.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Having a child is not letting someone in.Andrew4Handel

    Consent is for specific actions.

    Give an example of a specific action you have in mind.
  • Andrew4Handel
    2.5k
    The consent issue only arises in humans because of our unique cognitive capacities. I don't know what other animals would think about procreating if they could reflect and reason like us.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    I think he means that other people have different considerations and evaluations of life.schopenhauer1

    Who? Andrew? khaled?

    And if they're talking about that--"other people have different considerations and evaluations of life," then they're not talking about anything that I've been talking about. Do they not understand what I'm talking about?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    The consent issue only arises in humans because of our unique cognitive capacities. I don't know what other animals would think about procreating if they could reflect and reason like us.Andrew4Handel

    I hope that's not a response to me asking you to give an example of a specific action you have in mind.
  • schopenhauer1
    11k
    Who? Andrew? khaled?

    And if they're talking about that--"other people have different considerations and evaluations of life," then they're not talking about anything that I've been talking about. Do they not understand what I'm talking about?
    Terrapin Station

    In this case, Andrew. Your current conversation with him.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    Okay, but what would that have to do with anything I'm talking about?
  • schopenhauer1
    11k
    Okay, but what would that have to do with anything I'm talking about?Terrapin Station

    The same with khaled, all their arguments can be subsumed in the one I just gave. It can be characterized in a way that still takes your objection into consideration, and as stated earlier, makes a powerful argument with that objection at the core of its logic.
  • Andrew4Handel
    2.5k
    Consent is for specific actions.

    Give an example of a specific action you have in mind
    Terrapin Station

    I disagree with your characterization of consent. If you do not rape someone then you are refraining from an action because you respect someones consent. Refraining from actions not doing actions is the main way that consent is respected.

    I gave my own experiences of being forced to go to church and school also I was forced to eat what my mother chose for me You are forced to work or either claim social security. You are forced to continue surviving or commit suicide.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    The same with khaled, all their arguments can be subsumed in the one I just gave. It can be characterized in a way that still takes your objection into consideration, and as stated earlier, makes a powerful argument with that objection at the core of its logic.schopenhauer1

    I couldn't care less about any antinatalist arguments. I am interested in the consent issue, especially since people really don't seem to understand consent very well, and they're conflating all sorts of things.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    I disagree with your characterization of consent. If you do not rape someone then you are refraining from an action because you respect someones consent. Refraining from actions not doing actions is the main way that consent is respected.Andrew4Handel

    None of that disagrees with anything I've said, though.

    I gave my own experiences of being forced to go to church and school also I was forced to eat what my mother chose for meAndrew4Handel

    So in those cases, if we're counting young children as agents that are capable of and need to grant or withhold consent for everything they're eating, for whether they go to school, etc., the person violating your consent would be whoever forced you to eat a particular food on a particular occasion, whoever forced you to go to school on a particular day, etc. Consent is relevant to a particular instance, a particular action, involving particular agents.
  • khaled
    3.5k
    The person in the location where the bomb goes off. That would be a person who exists who is normally capable of granting or withholding consent.

    They're not "a person who doesn't exist yet."
    Terrapin Station

    What if it was. What if someone set a bomb to exlode BEFORE a certain baby was born and set it to explode AFTER he was born. That's right of course by your standards? After all the baby wasn't around to ask when the bomb was being planted. Better yet, what if that someone implanted a bomb in a fetus and set it to explode 30 years later. Totally moral isn't it? After all the babey isn't around to ask for consent?

    So I wasn't saying there was something wrong with merely planting a bomb. I wasn't saying anything about risks or potentials or anything like that. I was covering the base where someone isn't literally touching another person's body, but where there's an agent capable of consenting to things done to their body where there's a causally-demonstrable chain back to someone else.Terrapin Station

    So is this case moral or no? The cause IS directly peggable to you BUT there was no person to ask for consent from at the moment the action was being committed. So is implanting bombs in fetuses ok?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    This would be a big tangent, but I'm curious: I don't know if you had any kids, or if you plan on having any, but didn't or wouldn't you educate your kids, either by sending them to school or by home-schooling them, even if your kid would rather watch cartoons all day or whatever?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    What if it was. What if someone set a bomb to exlode BEFORE a certain baby was born and set it to explode AFTER he was born.khaled

    That's irrelevant. The issue is that when the person walks into the location where the bomb goes off, they're an agent normally capable of granting or withholding consent. Thus at that point, they either consent or not to being bombed.

    Again, folks are not getting the idea of us needing to refer to specific/particular actions, by specific/particular agents who are capable of granting or withholding consent.
  • khaled
    3.5k
    That's irrelevant. The issue is that when the person walks into the location where the bomb goes off, they're an agent normally capable of granting or withholding consent. Thus at that point, they either consent or not to being bombed.Terrapin Station

    When a person walks into a situation that brings them ANY harm they are capable of granting or witholding consent. Therefore birth is immoral because there will be someone capable of granting or withholding consent for it in the future but that person's consent hasn't been obtained. Same with planting bombs in fetuses.

    Did you just argue straight for antinatalism or did I misunderstand?
  • khaled
    3.5k
    Wait I just misread don't mind me
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    When a person walks into a situation that brings them ANY harmkhaled

    No. Not "any harm." That's way too vague. It has to be an action with particular physical effects, performed upon or with them in conjunction with other agents. It can't be just observational, or something no involving agents, etc. And it can't be someone who "will be" but currently isn't capable of consent.
  • khaled
    3.5k
    Just to be clear here. Are you saying it IS or IS NOT moral to plant bombs in fetuses? You haven't actually given a straight answer
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    Planting bombs is not a moral matter. Having them go off nonconsensually is.

    You could make the whole world out of a bomb. If it doesn't go off, who would care? People care because they go off.
  • khaled
    3.5k
    So if the bomb goes off non consentually who is at fault? The person that planted it right?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    So if the bomb goes off non consentually who is at fault? The person that planted it right?khaled

    Yes. And it has to be nonconsensually. That means that we need an agent normally capable of consent. Otherwise consent isn't an issue. Something can't happen nonconsensually to an entity not capable of consenting.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    (Well, or actually it might not be the person who planted it. It would depend on the exact scenario, actually, but we can simplify.)
  • khaled
    3.5k
    Ok so if a child is run over by a car and loses all functionality in his leg. There are two causes for his loss of functionality. First of all, the car hit him (non consentually). Second, he was there. But why was he there in the first place? Because he was born (non consentually). So you can say part of the reason he was harmed was that he was born non consentually can we agree?

    Or do you not consider enabling harm a factor at all? For example, if someone places a bear trap somewhere, he isn't exactly fully responsible for harming whoever steps on it. The person who steps on it ultimately causes the bear trap to spring. So is the person that put the bear trap there at fault (assuming the person who stepped on it did not consent to the original guy putting it there)
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Ok so if a child is run over by a car and loses all functionality in his leg. There are two causes for his loss of functionality. First of all, the car hit him (non consentually). Second, he was there. But why was he there in the first place? Because he was born (non consentually). So you can say part of the reason he was harmed was that he was born non consentually can we agree?

    Or do you not consider enabling harm a factor at all?
    khaled

    Why, in your view, isn't part of the reason he was there the fact that the "WALK" sign was on to cross the intersection? So do you hold the traffic control light designers, manufacturers, etc. partially responsible?
  • khaled
    3.5k
    No. Because the light desingers and manufacturers did not intentionally cause this harm. While giving birth to someone is very intentional and done with full knowledge it would cause them harm. I WOULD however blame the driver if he was driving through a red light intentionally for example. I would also blame whoever placed the WALK sign there if it can be proven that the child crossed the street accidentally due to a misplaced WALK sign.

    The thing that would make an action immoral for me is
    A) The results are known or knowable to a good degree
    B) The results include harming someone
    C) Consent from the person who is to be harmed has not been obtained prior
    D) Action is intentional

    Giving birth checks all 4. The sign designers don't check D
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    No. Because the light desingers and manufacturers did not intentionally cause this harm. While giving birth to someone is very intentional and done with full knowledge it would cause them harm.khaled

    You don't intentionally cause the harm of someone getting run over by a car when you give birth.

    You can be aware of the fact that that could happen, but traffic control signal designers, manufacturers, etc. are far more acutely aware of the fact that someone could get run over by a car by crossing a street.

    Neither is intentionally causing the harm. The driver probably didn't intentionally cause the harm, either. It was probably an accident. It may have been negligent, and it may not have been.
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.