It is not that it is trying to cause as much suffering as possible, but that it's constantly striving for nothing in particular and this causes constant action and force in lower gradations, and suffering in conscious and self-conscious gradations. — schopenhauer1

The nature of the Will, i.e. the "striving" of it, seems to have a correlation to creation and an abrupt halt in interest in this creation. Perhaps we can envision the Will as a kind of deistic god, one that creates things simply because it can and has a divine case of ADHD. I'm going off more of a metaphorical account of cosmology rather than a strict metaphysical account, but we can imagine the world being sustained by the very interest of the Will. As the Will loses interest, so does the Idea fade (entropy).

I don't quite understand though why the Will would create something that can seemingly oppose it because it suffers due to the Will. Is it just by accident that the Will creates beings that can suffer? Why does there seem to be exceptions to the Will? Not everything in the world is chaotic, random, or striving. I'm not sure why or how the Will would create a world that is not in its own nature. Perhaps as the Will loses interest, the Idea fights back and attempts to sustain the world, creating conscious life (like mini-Wills) in a vain attempt for self-preservation.

In a way, Schopenhauer's Will reminds me of the teleology of Aristotelian metaphysics. A substance is drawn towards its telos because of its very essence. But not everything can reach perfection.

This is a good point. It is more of a tepid Will than a ferocious Will. But maybe, even if we can think of a worst possible world, this is actually how bad it can get? — schopenhauer1

Schopenhauer uses an appeal to modality to argue against Leibniz' claim that this is the best of all possible worlds. He does so by arguing that god could change the parameters of possibilities - and if he cannot, then he is no god after all.

But if the Will is the source of the Idea, then I don't understand why the Will seems to be constrained. We can imagine a world worse than this (just as we can imagine a world better than this). I can imagine myself stuck at work for another hour overtime instead of writing this post. I can imagine suddenly and intensely feeling lust for an unknown subject. I can imagine there being one more African in Sierra Leone mining blood diamonds than there are in the actual world.

It's because of this that I believe that Schopenhauer over-emphasized the Will. Indeed I don't think that there is a harm of existence, but rather harms in existence. I doubt this is the best of all possible worlds, and I doubt that this is the worst of all possible worlds.

but why is it this kind of world with this hefty PSR/Time/Space/Causality? Why would that be how it manifests itself? — schopenhauer1

Good question. Too bad Schopenhauer is dead, I have some questions for him.

What I never understood about Schopenhauer's idealism is that if the Idea is the result of the Will, and the Will is an unrelenting, striving force, then why is the world not even worse than it is? We certainly do "will" towards things, but then again we can tame this will. We can meditate, look at aesthetics, sublimate into projects, hang out with good friends, etc. Why are we able to do this? And why are we even able to understand the Will (for understanding leads to attempts to reject the Will - the exact thing the Will would not want).

If there really is a Will, then I wonder why the world is not just an exponentially-growing pit of never-ending slavery to desire, with the inhabitants literally dragging their feet on the ground as they attempt to cope with the desire but ultimately unable to reflect upon it.

Torture should be kept for those cases which are crystal clear only. — Agustino

I'm assuming you believe that there ever can be a crystal-clear case? Presumably all those who have been executed were thought to be crystal-clear guilty. And yet there were some who were innocent.

I would simply state that I feel very sorry and concerned for the family, but I really am not the criminal. — Agustino

Psychopaths can lie.

What makes you think everyone can be redeemed based only on external forces? — Agustino

I don't believe everyone can be redeemed. But I believe they ought to be given a chance.

The "original intent" of the eye-for-an-eye rule was to keep vengeance proportionate. If, for instance, somebody stepped on your sore toe, you didn't get to gouge out their eyeball as punishment. If somebody accidentally shot your cow during deer hunting season, you don't get to slaughter their family. "Proportionate vengeance" said Hammurabi. — Bitter Crank

But the eye-for-an-eye making the whole world blind analogy is arguing for forgiveness.

Again - if they admit to the crime, and laugh at the justice, and mock the family... how can we possibly be wrong? — Agustino

It's not really about how we can possibly be wrong in these kinds of situation. It's that the law is not written in a case-by-case basis. We don't get to say that one person is obviously guilty while someone else is obviously innocent. Executing an innocent person cannot be excused. The desire for vengeance does not excuse an innocent's execution. We may be confident that x is guilty of death, and in fact x is indeed guilty, but executing x leads to the slippery slope of executing y, who is innocent. No executions, period.

In some cases - in other cases, not fighting for justice is seen as weakly and cowardly, or even worse, immoral. — Agustino

We wouldn't let these people go free. But you can release an innocent person from prison. You can't un-do an execution. You can't apologize to an innocent person for being tortured. Prison itself is a necessary evil, but we can accommodate everyone else in prison without killing or torturing them.

Simple. If they show remorse during the torture, then they will be put in prison and will undergo the usual punishment. If they don't, then they will be killed. — Agustino

What if you're actually innocent? Wouldn't you be coerced to admit to a crime you didn't commit?

Do you think he somehow doesn't deserve that kind of punishment? — Agustino

By killing someone you extinguish all potential for redemption. By executing someone, you are giving up on them. "It's time to die, because we hate you and can't/don't want to see you redeemed."

If somebody mocks your family by raping and brutally murdering someone from your family after having subjected them to the worst kinds of suffering imaginable, and then feeling proud of it, then you sure as hell kill them, even if the law were absurdly to refuse to punish them. — Agustino

Well I think this is an equivocation of the word mock. Making fun of someone's family is mocking, throwing eggs on their windows is mocking. Killing someone's daughter is not mocking, it's murder.

The murderer wouldn't go unpunished. But they wouldn't be killed or tortured, either. Sooner or later you are going to end up torturing or killing an innocent person. It's happened before and it will happen again if we continue to allow it to.

Why do you think that many people, when done grave injustices, resort to taking matters into their own hands, and some of them are even willing to go to the end of the earth and to sacrifice their own lives to ensure that justice is done? There is something in the human spirit which pushes them to do this - it's apparent in much of our literature, where such cases are best exemplified. — Agustino

It's also often seen as a tragic aspect of human nature. Our inability to make peace with others and swallow our desire for justice and vengeance creates even more conflict. We end up fighting conflict with more conflict. And in the end, all we feel is a sense of relief.

This is false. I think many people would enjoy torturing such a person. I for one would. Do you think I'm a psychopath? I think there is ample evidence that human beings have a sense of justice, which they are willing to go to their own death to ensure that it is not violated. I wouldn't enjoy harming or torturing or anything even close to that a normal, regular criminal. In fact, punishment for such criminals should not really be or be called punishment, it should be rehabilitation. But when it is one of those extreme and hideous crimes, that's an entirely different story. — Agustino

How do you determine when someone is able to be rehabilitated vs when they ought to be slaughtered like the dogs they are? Your gut feeling? Your (biased) desire for justice?

I will say plainly that I highly doubt your ability to kill someone else out of a sense of justice. There are ample stories of functionally normal people in guard positions in prison who executed those on death row and later live lives of severe depression and guilt, or guards who just couldn't do it and were replaced by those who apparently could.

Apologies beforehand, but I don't get it. If there's a cup, then there's a cup. If you agree that Trump is the worst candidate for office, then you believe that Trump is the worst candidate for office. Agreement necessitates belief.

So if the guy mocks the family and laughs about his actions we can be wrong? -_- — Agustino

You don't usually kill someone for mocking your family.

Exactly! This is exactly why we must step down on it in the harshest way imaginable. — Agustino

We certainly can't allow this behavior to continue. But we shouldn't stoop to their level and execute or torture them. This doesn't do anything but provide a catharsis. The psychopath isn't going to learn by torture, and she can't repent after she's dead.

Interestingly enough, it is easy to condemn someone to death, but far more difficult to actually do it. You either have to be a psychopath yourself to enjoy torturing or killing the guilty, or you end up with a lot of guilt, remorse, and suicidal thoughts.

Just knowing that a person "got away" pisses us off. It's not fair. It's not how we want things to be. But I wonder if you would be willing to kill someone yourself to restore order. You might walk away from the kill wondering if you just made things worse.

These people are beasts, they are worse than beasts. — Agustino

Do you suppose people pop out of the womb with identical clean slates, and that somehow some mystical metaphysical soul has the capability of choosing without constraint from causality?

We should be angry that these people made bad choices and caused harm to others. These people after all felt like they had a free choice to do these things.

And yet the capital punishment of death or torture for acting in one's nature is also wrong. If Schopenhauer argues that we want punishment in order to maintain justice, I would argue that by doing so we are simply reassuring ourselves that we live in a rational, just world when we in reality do not. A psychopath laughing about killing people for fun threatens the very foundation of our society. It shakes us to the core, and is therefore a prime target for the media. We feel inexplicably drawn to this menace in order to try to figure out why the psychopath is laughing and how this can fit in our view about a rational, coherent world.

So by saying "I want justice!", it seems like you are really saying "I want order!, I want safety, I want things to go the way I want them to!" By punishing someone you are trying to get them to repent and assimilate back into society, back into the submerged group-think.

More pragmatically, though, I am against torture and death penalties because we might be wrong in our judgement. Every single death penalty carried out was carried out with full reassurance from the law, and yet there are cases in which the prisoner was actually innocent and thus a victim of our over-zealous desire for justice. There's no point in killing them or torturing them. It's irrational, risky, and pointless.

I have no idea what controversy you're talking about, though. To be honest, I've only heard this kind of moral haranguing from conservative politicians wanting to beat out their opponent on the conserv-o-meter and show their constituents they bleed red-white-blue and believe in traditional values.

But, I accept that my experiences are conditioned by what is a rather conservative state. — Moliere

Funny you say this. I was motivated to make this thread because I was talking to an acquaintance who happens to be fairly conservative.

Then again, there are People's Republics of [insert city here] spread across the world that are dominated by the far left and the progressive ideology and are advocating for these kinds of things.

A practical solution I've seen implemented is to have three restrooms -- male, female, neutral. So those who wish to adhere to traditional roles can do so, and those who do not can also do so. — Moliere

The only problem I find with this is that it would require a tremendous amount of money and bureaucracy.

For one, I think many of us would feel good to see such a person subjected to the worst kinds of suffering until he begs for mercy. Would you disagree? — Agustino

Absolutely I disagree. And eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

All your reasoning here shows is our insatiable desire for vengeance and a deep belief in blood debts.

Maybe if enough of these lexit left-wingers left Europe, there would be room for all the refugees.
/s

not being for gay pride events in gay-friendly areas. — csalisbury

I'm not against gay pride events, I just don't particularly like them nor find them to be necessary. They tend to be over-the-top and make the LGBT community filled with special snowflakes.

I don't think theyre a prime rape spot tbh. — csalisbury

Isn't the very reason we have separation of sexes is because of the possibility of rape or something similar?

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind. Got this baby for a bargain. Original price was $150, I got it for $40. Best book on philosophy of mind I've ever read.

I always get a little concerned when people talk about the world's 'dreamlike quality" For 'dreamlike' to be in any way meaningful, it must be possible to distinguish between dreamlike and non-dreamlike. Dreams are dreamlike in opposition to what? Not the world, certainly, if the world itself is 'dreamlike.' — csalisbury

I think dreamlike here means the phenomenological appearance of the analyzed world. We either live in a metaphorical dream in an unanalyzed world, or we confront the world and analyze it only to find that it reminds us of a dream.

Schopenhauer should be recognized as among those philosophers who utilize the 'strange loop' structure at the very basis of their thought. In Schopenhauer, to recall, this involves the peculiarity of saying that although my mind is in my head, my head is in my mind, and although my head is in my mind, my mind is in my head. This mind-bending thought gives one extended pause.

Thanks for this. I never knew there was literature surrounding this idea.

You and your translations... ;)

Hey, look what I found! Arthur Schopenhauer's Studies in Pessimism. This should prove interesting to the discussion.

Independent philosophical studies are like epistemology, metaphysics, logic, etc. These are used in the various philosophies of x's, but can be studied by themselves.

Therefore, if there is no disagreement possible over the nature of some concept, then there cannot be a philosophy of that concept. — Sinderion

Correct. Philosophical methodology is via argumentation. You cannot argue without having disagreement.

This is why there is no philosophy of tupperware, or philosophy of car washing. There just isn't enough to disagree over, and plus most everyone doesn't care to flesh out their disagreements.

However, not all philosophy acts as a handmaiden to another profession. There are independent philosophical studies.

Again, my links are only supplemental material. My position does not rise or fall solely on these psychological phenomenons.

You sir, seem to smuggle the idea that life must be carried out for the sake of it. — schopenhauer1

This. ugh :s

Then please go ahead and do so, or link to a post in which you think you've done so. — Sapientia

Pollyanna Principle

Hedonic Treadmill

Repression

Terror Management Theory

What? Prostitution?? Who talked about prostitution? — Agustino

BC did when he offered the solution of sex workers.

Considering honeybees have been seen as acting as if they had optimism and pessimism biases, we can at least apply a kind of behaviorist model of mind to them.

In other words, what Schopenhauer1 is saying is that the good in the world, the aesthetics, the sciences, the friendships, victories, reliefs, and pleasures are second-order and are structurally dependent upon a striving Will and the propensity to suffer. The question is whether or not the second-order flowers make up for the roots of striving and suffering.

When the flowers are not only contingent but also quick to pass, while the roots are necessary and permanent (until death), it makes one wonder if this is all worth it.

Shakespeare said it best with his To be, or not to be soliloquy in Hamlet.

If you're suggesting that I've committed a fallacious appeal to the majority, then you're mistaken. What I was getting at is that the testimony of all of those people does not count for nothing. It's circumstantial evidence, and evidence of a very large scale. So, you aren't justified to simply dismiss it, and, given that the counter-evidence against this circumstantial evidence that yourself and others have mentioned is insufficient to justify the rejection of all - or even most - of these testimonies, then your argument fails. — Sapientia

I am justified in dismissing it when it can be shown that people's own opinions of their lives are biased by rose-tinted glasses, hard-wired optimism and a pollyanna disposition.

Damage is not minimized by not giving birth to anyone. Extinction is one of the most damaging things that can happen to humanity. — Sapientia

There is very little redeeming features of the human race that I feel are worthy of consideration.

You can use that same reasoning to argue that we should let other people have children, and let those children live their lives unaffected by the actions of present-day antinatalists. (Of course, you and I both understand that they wouldn't technically be affected if they never exist, but I think that you catch my drift, bearing in mind what could be and what could cease to be a possibility). I also get that you don't argue in favor of enforced antinatalism, but the point still stands when you once again consider what could be if we were all antinatalists. It's hard to overstate just how catastrophic the consequences would be if you're not correct: we're talking about the extinction of humankind here. And what would otherwise happen? We'd continue to live on, through the good and the bad. Most people would affirm that they'd rather it be that way than not at all, and we should give them some credit. — Sapientia

An appeal to the majority proves nothing in terms of the truth of an ethical doctrine. We do not have a crystal ball, and this means that we ought not to mess around with things that affect other people. This doesn't mean we get to just do whatever the hell we want. This is exactly why engineers follow safety protocol when building things, so the damage is minimized. In the case of birth, damage is minimized by not giving birth to anything, and while this may lead to the "loss" of pleasurable moments, the minimization of severe pain is more important, since there really is no loss at all and those who are suffering immensely don't give a shit about the supposed pleasures of life.

If there was a society filled with 99 happy people and 1 miserable person, we would be concerned about the 1 miserable person. The 99 happy people would be rather unimportant once we saw the misery the 1 person was going through. How much happiness will make up for the Holocaust, or for the day-to-day misery of the animals being eaten alive?

The whole point here is that since you cannot predict how a life will turn out, and that life itself is filled with unfortunate circumstances, accidents, and general suffering, and that there is indeed a chance that something severe will befall the born, that having a child is not a rational nor moral thing to do.

When it comes to a judgement of birth, I tend to be passive and view it as something that is just a product of human emotions and ignorance. But nevertheless I do not view birth as something to be cherished.

Sex is not a necessity to exist. Just look at the ascetics, monks, and nuns who (supposedly) did not participate in the realm of sexual affairs. If you imprison someone but give them enough food, water, exercise, and sleep, they will not die.

Is it uncomfortable to abstain from any sexual gratification, particularly when you are bored and have nothing to do? Yes. Is it impossible to do so? I hardly think so.

So sex is hardly what I would say to be something that needs immediate attention.

But I do think that prostitution should not be illegal, at least not to adults (18+, or perhaps 21+). Prostitution without the use of contraceptives should be illegal, though, and generally prostitution should not be advocated as a legitimate business practice when there are safer alternatives. You want to sell your body? Go ahead, I won't condemn you but neither will I applaud you.

I was a late bloomer when I came to sexual gratification, and actually only began experimenting after I heard some of my school friends talking about it. Before then, I was more or less ignorant of the whole masturbatory process, although I am sure I would have found out by myself eventually.

Also another issue that might be relevant is the use of testosterone-impairments. Lowering the testosterone in men will lower the sex drive and aggression in men.

Why is kicking them out "bigoted, close minded and spreads fear"? Do not a sovereign people (Poles, Finns, Irish, Italians, Turks, Rumanians, Russians, Americans, British, French, etc.) have a right to say whether or not a million people from another part of the world can move in there, just because their own country has become a shit hole? — Bitter Crank

I should have expanded on my original point. Kicking them out because they are, say, Muslim is bigoted. Kicking them out simply because they aren't actually at your doorstep is just kind of kicking the can down the road. Someone has to deal with these refugees.

I would trust a refugee destination country more if they said, "Look: We don't really want you here, but we understand that you have been driven out of your own homes. We will admit you under two conditions: 1) You adapt to our lifestyle (rather than we adapt to yours) and 2) you will not become citizens here, no matter what. When your country gets itself together, back you go." — Bitter Crank

I can more or less agree with this. Unless the refugees do not desire to become citizens, they should be allowed to at least try to become one.

I'm glad that you acknowledge the subjectivity of it, but I suspect that you go further than I would with the appropriation part. I would say that some cases are more clearcut than others. If taken to extremes, we can more easily judge the value of a certain life - whether that be the life of an actual person or a hypothetical life. We can imagine a life of extreme misery, and in contrast, we can imagine a much better life. But there is a large grey area in between, and of course, although we can take certain factors into consideration, we don't have a crystal ball with which we can rightly appropriate the value of the lives of all of those within that grey area. — Sapientia

The fact that we don't have a crystal ball means that we probably shouldn't be messing around with stuff that affects other people.

The part in bold is what I think really matters. The former part could be conceded. It may well be the case that there is, in a certain sense, a greater and disproportionate amount of misery compared to fulfilment. But what matters is the effect that this has on the value of life. If the misery to fulfilment ratio was, say, 2:1, it doesn't follow that the detrimental effect that the former has on the value of life outweighs the beneficial effect of the latter. I don't think that you can successfully argue that that is true of every case, so I think that your position is untenable. — Sapientia

Regardless of the misery/value distinction, there is a threshold that once stepped over, the value of life drops significantly. In fact I would be willing to bet (based off of psychological and anthropological findings) that the value people derive from their lives is post hoc at best, that is, a derivation of relief that allows them to comfort themselves.

Again, since there is no way to predict how a person will end up, we probably shouldn't be experimenting.

In the end I believe it comes down to a subjective introspective appropriation of the value of existence. Can a life be made to be valuable? Possibly. Can a life be miserable and worthless? Possibly. Is an actualized valuable life worth more than an avoided miserable life? That is really what I perceive to be the underlying sentiment here: that there is a disproportionate amount of misery compared to fulfillment, and that no amount of pleasure will be able to compensate for the amount of pain, or the potential thereof, that a life will contain.

It's quite simple, really. In a hypothetical future scenario, someone is born and experiences valuable things out of life. This scenario can become an actuality, unless we go extinct. In a figurative sense, therefore, we can say that this someone would be missing out if they were never born and didn't subsequently experience those valuable things in life. Would they actually be missing out? No, because they were never born. Did I ever state or imply that they would actually be missing out? No. That's a straw man. — Sapientia

This is the use of counterfactuals to describe a potential, possible world, which is plausibly at least a component of our ability to conduct debates about modality.

Anyhoo, it's pretty easy to see, at least to myself (and others here as well) that the valuable things "missed" are not as important as the terrible things "avoided". There is nothing wrong with keeping people in non-existence.

And we can further use counterfactuals by arguing that a potential person "has" the right to consent to exist. Since they cannot consent, do not give birth.

Learned Helplessness

Yeah, no argument there. That's why you have to find something that makes up for the bullshit. Something to live for.

On aesthetic grounds, Plato's system is by far the more beautiful. If beauty were the standard of truth, as I am sometimes wont to think, then Plato's philosophy would be the truest. And it is further enriched and confirmed in its beauty by the Neoplatonists like Plotinus. — Thorongil

I do agree that Plato's metaphysics has a certain air to it. It is aesthetically pleasing but also almost mystical. Too bad I'm not a strict Platonist...I wish I could be, though! ;)

What is it about life that you find to be absolutely dreadful?

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death. - Schopenhauer

Let's talk sleep/unconsciousness/resuscitation via CPR or other means: if you are of the opinion that coming into existence is always a harm, is waking up from sleep or being resuscitated while unconscious undesirable?

This will obviously include the discussion of personal identity, but I assume that most if not all of us are willing to accept that personal identity is at least partly (if not entirely) composed of conscious awareness (a feeling of selfhood).

Going further, then, when one goes to sleep or goes into an unconscious state and then awakes, is the individual who wakes again the "same" individual?

If not, then the strict antinatalist seems to be in a tricky situation as it would seem as though they would be obligated to make sure they do not wake up again. For if they do wake up again, they will have created a conscious entity without its explicit consent; that is, they will have brought into existence an individual that would have otherwise stayed in non-existence.

What about CPR/other means of resuscitation? Can the strict antinatalist be okay with resuscitating unconscious individuals? What if they didn't want to be resuscitated?

If one answers that the probability of them desiring to be resuscitated is high, this contradicts the antinatalist's (presumed) position regarding consent in birth, for someone else could easily just say that the probability of the child enjoying their life and appreciating being born is high.

Perhaps the bullet ought to be bitten. Perhaps we ought to have little cards that tell passerbys whether or not they should attempt to resuscitate us.