On Antinatalism

khaled

It depends on the individual in question and how they're thinking about them. — Terrapin Station

What does this actually mean though

Terrapin Station

So the answer is no? I'm just saying that not making sense from a subjectivist/emotivist standpoint isn't really a problem with antinatalism only — khaled

So obviously you're not a subjectivist or emotivist. Why pretend to be one?

khaled

↪Terrapin Station

So obviously you're not a subjectivist or emotivist. Why pretend to be one? — Terrapin Station

I probably do misunderstand it but can you please answer the question?

Terrapin Station

↪khaled

Obviously one is not going to adopt a philosophical view about something that results in that thing making no sense, right?

Terrapin Station

You're not going to say, "Hey subjectivism or emotivism is right re ethics . . . especially because ethics makes no sense under subjectivism or emotivism"

khaled

↪Terrapin Station

Obviously one is not going to adopt a philosophical view about something that results in that thing making no sense, right? — Terrapin Station

Thank you for finally answering the question. Now. For me to pretend I am a subjectivist/emotivist I would have to say that I believed that me thinking antinatalism is the case is any more than me expressing a feeling I have. I have never said that. All I ever said was that most people would come to share this feeling if they did not make an exception for birth from other feelings they have about other acts.

Terrapin Station

↪khaled

Okay, but you'd realize that someone could just as well think "Creating suffering people is morally neutral" right?

khaled

↪Terrapin Station

Okay, but you'd realize that someone could just as well think "Creating suffering people is morally neutral" right? — Terrapin Station

They COULD. Then I'd ask them "Is genetically modifying a child to suffer as much as possible ok by you?" And if they say no then they were lying initially (or are idiots) and if they say yes then I'd say "fair enough"

The point is, no one actually think creating suffering people is morally neutral. At least, no one I've talked to so far

Terrapin Station

"Is genetically modifying a child to suffer as much as possible ok by you?" — khaled

For one, they didn't say anything about "suffering as much as possible" did they? So why would you change it to that?

khaled

↪Terrapin Station

"suffering more than they would without modifications" then

but also it's 3:35 and I'm going to bed

Terrapin Station

"suffering more than they would without modifications" then — khaled

They could just say, "I have no opinion on that; all I have an opinion on is that creating suffering people is morally neutral"

Terrapin Station

↪khaled

Basically, you're banking on the idea of reasoning about this stuff--so that you need to proceed as if moral utterances have truth values, and you're also trying to do that from the perspective of moral utterances needing to be maximally generalized rather than being very particularly qualified or alternately rather vague.

khaled

↪Terrapin Station

They could just say, "I have no opinion on that; all I have an opinion on is that creating suffering people is morally neutral" — Terrapin Station

I would invite them to think about it. If they don’t want to then there’s not much I can do about that.

khaled

↪Terrapin Station

Basically, you're banking on the idea of reasoning about this stuff — Terrapin Station

Yes, because to most people different moral statements have certain connecting “themes” or “logic” behind them. Most people don’t randomly juggle words in a sentence such that it contains the word “should” and employ the generated moral statement as a result.

you're also trying to do that from the perspective of moral utterances needing to be maximally generalized — Terrapin Station

Not necessarily. It’s just better to start with general statements. If you want more specific ones I can do that but we haven’t even gotten over vague ones (not that I want to start arguing with you about this again)

Actually going to bed now

staticphoton

Yes it is. Because a world of the "morally irresponsible" is impossible. The chances of it are highly unlikely — khaled

Impossible and highly unlikely are far from being the same. For the sake of argument, if you erase the morally responsible all you have left is the morally irresponsible.

but I thought we were reducing it to pleasure = good, pain = bad for the sake of argument — khaled

Yes, but as I also stated, that reduces the argument to a depth nearing meaninglessness.

If the whole purpose of this thread is an exercise in argumentative skills then I'm bowing out. I was trying to understand the concept as a meaningful, implementable plan, but I'm finding it to be nothing but an exercise in idealism based on a dim view of the human experience.

schopenhauer1

but I'm finding it to be nothing but an exercise in idealism based on a dim view of the human experience. — staticphoton

Why does the "human experience" need to be lived out in the first place? It sounds like a knee-jerk idea of "because existence has some good points, or because I have grown from pain, existence must be good for people to have to live through". That however, does not logically cohere.

staticphoton

Why does the "human experience" need to be lived out in the first place? It sounds like a knee-jerk idea of "because existence has some good points, or because I have grown from pain, existence must be good for people to have to live through". That however, does not logically cohere — schopenhauer1

More than directing the argument towards what I personally consider good or bad, whether human existence is good or bad, or anecdotal examples about human life benefitting from surviving hardship, I prefer to not pretend my personal moral judgment is above nature's design.

schopenhauer1

I prefer to not pretend my personal moral judgment is above nature's design. — staticphoton

That makes no logical sense. Nature's design? Humans have freedom of thought and can do any number of actions. Nature here implies there is only one path someone can or should follow. If it is "should follow" that is the naturalistic fallacy.

staticphoton

That makes no logical sense. Nature's design? Humans have freedom of thought and can do any number of actions. Nature here implies there is only one path someone can or should follow. If it is "should follow" that is the naturalistic fallacy. — schopenhauer1

Not really. After all, by whatever method that we clearly do not yet understand nature produced humans, where humans are nowhere near to produce anything rivaling the feat. There is no one path, we are free to choose. You choose to believe the very fact that nature produced humans is a mistake that needs to be corrected, I simply disagree.

khaled

↪staticphoton

Impossible and highly unlikely are far from being the same. For the sake of argument, if you erase the morally responsible all you have left is the morally irresponsible. — staticphoton

That’s exactly what I’m saying won’t happen. Because among the morally irresponsible some will learn to become morally responsible. Because moral responsibility is not genetic

Yes, but as I also stated, that reduces the argument to a depth nearing meaninglessness.

If the whole purpose of this thread is an exercise in argumentative skills then I'm bowing out. I was trying to understand the concept as a meaningful, implementable plan, but I'm finding it to be nothing but an exercise in idealism based on a dim view of the human experience. — staticphoton

Ok so we’re not using pleasure good pain bad anymore then. What’s the alternative you’re proposing? Also, antinatalism is not a plan. In the same way that “murder is wrong” is not a plan. Note that a world without murders is unimplementable and neither is a world where everyone is not an antinatalist. That doesn’t take away from whether or not they make sense does it?

I prefer to not pretend my personal moral judgment is above nature's design. — staticphoton

Nature doesn’t design. Also does that mean if you had bad vision you wouldn’t buy glasses to preserve “nature’s design”? What about vaccines? As I said, we have gone against nature’s design plenty of times already. Unless you mean something else by nature’s design and I’m talking past you

staticphoton

Ok so we’re not using pleasure good pain bad anymore then. What’s the alternative you’re proposing? Also, antinatalism is not a plan. In the same way that “murder is wrong” is not a plan. Note that a world without murders is unimplementable and neither is a world where everyone is not an antinatalist. That doesn’t take away from whether or not they make sense does it? — khaled

Since you're using murder as a parallel, I'll delineate a parallel plan:
Murdering causes suffering, so we will outlaw murder to limit it.
Birthing causes suffering, so we will outlaw birthing to limit it.

Neither is fully implementable, but you do your best, right? The only obvious difficulty is that pretty much everyone considers murder to be bad, while not so many consider birth to be bad. And if one doubts the power of the majority in forging the bounds of morality then one has forgotten history.

Birth = bad makes sense to you and a very small minority. A simplistic rationalization doesn't necessarily make it morally correct.

Nature doesn’t design. Also does that mean if you had bad vision you wouldn’t buy glasses to preserve “nature’s design”? What about vaccines? As I said, we have gone against nature’s design plenty of times already. Unless you mean something else by nature’s design and I’m talking past you — khaled

Design is a word I'm using to illustrate man is a product of nature.
There wasn't a point in which humans became "separate from nature" and began to create eyeglasses and vaccines, we do exactly what nature endowed us with to do, nothing more & nothing less. We are not an invading species from another planet nor a "virus" inoculated into the environment to screw things up. If we ultimately bomb ourselves into extinction and take the world with it, it is only because evolution has taken us to the point of being able to create the means and make the choices.

I have no idea how anyone can come to the conclusion that human reason is above the very system that created it.

khaled

↪staticphoton

Birth = bad makes sense to you and a very small minority. — staticphoton

True, and I believe you should be part of that minority if you want to avoid seeming like a hypocrite. Whether or not birth = bad is what I came here to debate, not whether or not one should outlaw birth. Because as I said before, an antinatalist leader is so incredibly unlikely that I find reasoning about whether or not he’d be right in imposing antinatalism on the population a waste of time.

There wasn't a point in which humans became "separate from nature" and began to create eyeglasses and vaccines, we do exactly what nature endowed us with to do — staticphoton

Nature also allowed us all to be antinatalists no? So I don’t see a problem here. Again, nature doesn’t have an agenda for us. Any agenda you ascribe to nature is just your own.

You also haven’t presented an alternative to “pain bad pleasure good” that we’ve been using, even though you conceded antinatalism makes sense under those hedonistic general principles. And yet you criticize it for being

A simplistic rationalization doesn't necessarily make it morally correct. — staticphoton

Please present a non simplistic moral valuation so we can see if it antinatalism still makes sense under more complex principles because I believe it does. It’s been simplistic SO FAR but David benetar for example went over much more complex moral principles in his book “better never to have been” that are popular nowadays and showed that antinatalism still makes sense under those as well. You can’t criticize the position for using simplistic rationalization when you’re the one that said “let’s assume pleasure good pain bad for the sake of argument”

staticphoton

Nature also allowed us all to be antinatalists no? So I don’t see a problem here — khaled

You're the one who said:

we have gone against nature’s design plenty of times already — khaled

So I was trying to make it easier for you.

Since your strategy keeps reverting to calling me a hypocrite, and because of the fact that no matter what I say you will never accept the premise that there is merit in the balance of suffering/happiness, I don't see the point of continuing.

In the end it is all a matter of belief, and we are free to believe what makes sense to us. If ending suffering by ending humanity is your ideal, I am sure there are good reasons for you to reach that point, I completely accept that, and I have no interest in making you think my way.

I'll catch you around Khaled, be good.

khaled

↪staticphoton

no matter what I say you will never accept the premise that there is merit in the balance of suffering/happiness, I don't see the point of continuing. — staticphoton

That is false first of all. I haven’t stated an opinion about “the balance of suffering/pleasure” because I don’t think it matters. Unlike most of the people here I don’t think my opinion of life is a factor in deciding whether or not I should introduce someone else into it for the simple reason that they might not share said opinion. It shouldn’t matter what you think of the balance of suffering/happiness when you know it’s possible your child won’t think the same. The point is: you take a risk of harming someone else for no good reason and in a way where they can’t appeal to some greater meaning or value in “the balance of suffering/happiness”. At least you haven’t shown me a good reason yet. That YOU find value in the balance of suffering/happiness that is no good reason to assume a stranger would find value in the same is it? You’d have to convince me that there is some moral good resulting from having children, as in, someone somewhere benefits from it so much that the suffering of the child is outweighed.

Let’s just get one thing clear: do you think that if someone had a child and provided them with an absolutely perfect life (as measured by the child) that that someone has done something good?

Because I think what he did was neutral at best.

If ending suffering by ending humanity is your ideal — staticphoton

Ending humanity is not my ideal. It’s a side effect. “Humanity” is not a person. I’m not actually harming anyone here whereas one can be harmed severely by being brought into a world where harm is possible. If you harm someone by NOT having children then I’d be arguing you’re a hypocrite for not having MORE children

schopenhauer1

So I was trying to make it easier for you. — staticphoton

No you can't do that. Khaled was trying to understand what you meant by "Nature". You were unclear- was it that nature only has one way and we are against it? If so, Khaled was trying to show that this was clearly wrong because as humans who are PART OF NATURE, we clearly can do any number of actions, including not procreate, which means that antinatalism is "part of nature" too.

In the end it is all a matter of belief, and we are free to believe what makes sense to us. — staticphoton

The key here is "us" in your quote. You are making a decision on behalf of someone else, and then hoping post-facto that they will agree with your decision, or that harm is not greater than pain for them. It is always the case though, that you made this decision for someone else that cannot be reversed. Prior to birth, no person existed. No person with needs or wants, or with harms to experience. Sure, there are no neutral/good experiences either, or chances to grow from pain. But then, the assumption is, that people HAVE to experience some sort of cycle of growth through pain, along with occasional happy experiences and probable undue harm (what I call the GTA-UH model). It's like the standard model people project will be their future child's life. No one ever has a good answer why this model should be carried out- why the agenda of the GTA-UH model must be experienced by another person, at the cost of creating (literally) unnecessary needs and wants, challenges/adversity, and certainly undue harm. If you go back and say, "it's nature", that is false as someone can simply not procreate and defy this idea that it is some all abiding force that just makes it that way. You can go back and say that you like inflicting challenges on other people, and seeing them go through undue harm, but then that could be deemed as mildly (at best) sadistic. You could go back and say that you feel that you are a missionizer for humanity to continue, but then that could be deemed as messianic and unfounded. So yeah, no good justification for the GTA-UH model being carried forth again and again and again at the cost of harming new people.

schopenhauer1

Ending humanity is not my ideal. It’s a side effect. “Humanity” is not a person. I’m not actually harming anyone here whereas one can be harmed severely by being brought into a world where harm is possible — khaled

Great point.. I don't know why people always make that error.

staticphoton

At least you haven’t shown me a good reason yet. — khaled

What I consider a good reason, you don't. You are asking me to understand what "good" means to you, and structure my answer in a way that fits that mold. That is beyond my ability.

you take a risk of harming someone else for no good reason — khaled

See above.

That YOU find value in the balance of suffering/happiness that is no good reason to assume a stranger would find value in the same is it? — khaled

Per your own reasoning, values are not genetically inherited, they are taught. And to assume that those reared by me are "strangers" is a belief I don't share either.

You’d have to convince me that there is some moral good resulting from having children, as in, someone somewhere benefits from it so much that the suffering of the child is outweighed. — khaled

Again, I have no interest in convincing you, I only here to see if from my perspective there is any merit in your belief.

Let’s just get one thing clear: do you think that if someone had a child and provided them with an absolutely perfect life (as measured by the child) that that someone has done something good? — khaled

I don't think in those terms. Good and bad are far from being absolutely and universally defined values against which every system of morals is measured, what is good to some is bad for others. I'm sure I don't need to explain that to you. To me that question is meaningless.

Ending humanity is not my ideal. It’s a side effect. “Humanity” is not a person. I’m not actually harming anyone here whereas one can be harmed severely by being brought into a world where harm is possible. If you harm someone by NOT having children then I’d be arguing you’re a hypocrite for not having MORE children — khaled

Again, judging people for not sharing your set of beliefs is dogmatic at best. Personally, ending humanity seem like a pretty big deal to be set aside as a collateral effect, "oh well stuff happens".

The key here is "us" in your quote. You are making a decision on behalf of someone else, and then hoping post-facto that they will agree with your decision, or that harm is not greater than pain for them. — schopenhauer1

If you are making a decision to contribute to the greater good by not having any children, I respect that. If you will not be content until everyone sees it your way, that's another story. I simply don't share your values or perspective.

staticphoton

This "suffering" thing has been integral to the cycle of life since its inception, what, 2 billion years ago or so. So now that life has gotten to a point where it acquired the capacity of reasoning, it reasons that this "suffering" thing is "bad" and the cycle of life should end.

that's the bottom line, right?

khaled

↪staticphoton

I don't think in those terms — staticphoton

If you don’t think in terms of good and bad then how are you doing ethics right now?

What I consider a good reason, you don't. — staticphoton

What IS your good reason exactly? That you yourself believe in the value of a pain/happiness cycle and are thus entitled to bring into the world someone else knowing full well they might not share your comforting belief? If that is the case, then I should be allowed to force people to work my job if I like it right? After all, me liking an experience apparently gives me license to impose it on someone else.

Per your own reasoning, values are not genetically inherited, they are taught. And to assume that those reared by me are "strangers" is a belief I don't share either. — staticphoton

They are strangers until you educate them obviously.

If you are making a decision to contribute to the greater good by not having any children, — staticphoton

This is missing the point, the whole point of not having children is that it is a way to ensure no one is harmed but no one benefits either. Antinatalists don’t try to contribute to a greater good, they merely don’t want to risk contributing to greater evil

khaled

↪staticphoton

suffering" thing is "bad". — staticphoton

Yes. Unless it is for some greater purpose. But you can’t guarantee your child will find such greater purpose.

and life should end. — staticphoton

No. Future life should not be introduced. Totally different things.

On Antinatalism

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