In some jurisdictions you can sue for "wrongful life" when your suffering could have been avoided had the medical professionals advised your parents of a medical condition and they not had you.

Arguably, this could be widened to suffering not caused by a medical condition, in which case the parents would be liable. There was an antinatalist in India that said he was going to file suit for it.

The poll in the OP.

Yes, I think my life is marginally bad now, and expect end of life to be horrific.

Interesting that 45% also say they with they never existed. Surely this is an argument for antinatalism.

With a better reason than 'reasonable suspicion', yes. — AmadeusD

Shouldn't this be checked by a judge to make sure government is not abusing its power?

The government would argue it's not going to be will-nilly. They are only going to do it when they have reasonable suspicion of overpayment.

Surely you trust government to get this right? They have such a good track record :roll:

I didn't know what we were arguing about, but looking back I see it now. That's my fault - I misspoke. I meant the conflict of interest is too great to leave it to the non-judicial parts of the state (namely the executive and the "independent" public bodies the executive appoints the head of).

Tories are in power for the bulk of the time. Do you believe they are more interested in providing services or cutting public spending? I would argue that their overriding interest is cutting public spending, and they are biased by this.

The stats speak for themselves:

Before appealing a PIP (disability benefit) decision to a judicial tribunal, you lodge a reconsideration request with the state - approximately 22% of the time they overturn their original decision. Of those that are then appealed to an independent judicial tribunal, approximately 70% are won by the claimant.

And you cannot go to the tribunal until they have reconsidered their decision. People go for years waiting for reconsideration - all this period without an income, and many die after being declared "fit for work" waiting for reconsideration. — Down The Rabbit Hole

The conflict of interest is too great to leave it to the state.

As @Jack Cummins has hinted to, the Department for Work and Pensions are notoriously bad.

Before appealing a PIP (disability benefit) decision to a judicial tribunal, you lodge a reconsideration request with the state - approximately 22% of the time they overturn their original decision. Of those that are then appealed to an independent judicial tribunal, approximately 70% are won by the claimant.

And you cannot go to the tribunal until they have reconsidered their decision. People go for years waiting for reconsideration - all this period without an income, and many die after being declared "fit for work" waiting for reconsideration.

You say "generally". Where do you draw the line?

The way things are done now, prior to the bill becoming law, is the government contacts the benefit claimant, demanding return of the overpayment, and failing this, issues proceedings at the local civil court. They would have to prove their case on the balance of probabilities to recover any monies.

You suggest an administrative hearing. Do you mean a hearing conducted by the judiciary, such as by way of a tribunal, or by the state itself? The problems is, in the UK the government picks the head of the other elements of the state, such as the Met Police, Parliamentary Ombudsman, Ofcom, Financial Conduct Authority, National Health Service.

Yes, putting aside the arguments of government overreach, checks and balances, etc, this does disproportionately affect disabled people. People that even if they understood what was going on, are not in the financial position to spend on lawyers to fight government barristers.

I do wonder if this is an expensive draconian solution to a non-problem. Apparently it's nearly 4% of benefit expenditure is overpaid. Is that a massive problem compared to other problems? So 4/100 people get a bit more than they are entitled to? Compare that to billionaires not paying taxes. — bert1

Exactly. The Green Party have a policy of a wealth tax, and I'm very tempted by them. I usually vote Labour as the lesser of the two evils, but I'm not actually sure it is the lesser of the two evils under this leadership.

I guess you vote SNP up there in Scotland? Hopefully they give Labour a kicking at the next election.

Yes, you're spot on.

Even Reform abstained, and they're no friend of people on benefits.

It's for overpayments from error too, which is quite common.

No, the Direct Deduction Order is not a court order. It's ordered from the bank by the state.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/59-01/0167/240167.pdf

You seem to be saying, "It looks like X isn't going to be high enough to justify (3), therefore we can't give them a choice." This is a bit like the father at the theme park who reasons, "My daughter wants to go on this ride, and if she goes on it she will probably enjoy it, so I can't let her go on it." This is reminiscent of the "paternalism" that schopenhauer1 claims to oppose. — Leontiskos

No, I'm not convinced that the majority of people end up preferring they had been born. On top of the people that already wish they had never been born you have those suffering at the end of life wishing they had never been born.

Considering my view that most people are likely to live net bad lives, it would be more like the daughter wanting to go on the ride (after eating lots of candyfloss), and if you let her go on it will make her sick.
It would actually be worse than this, you would be putting her on the ride and making her sick before she even had a preference on it.
@schopenhauer1 was the master of these thought experiments. Forcing people onto rides, Willy Wonka World etc :smile:

If you are talking about a poll like the one that showed 64% happy - 36% unhappy, ostensibly, the percentage of people that would rather they had never been born would be lower than the unhappy 36%, when considering things like unhappy people that prefer to have been born "otherwise they wouldn't have had their children" etc.

My same objection to the happiness poll would apply to the birth preference one though. I don't know how many of those suffering at end of life wish they had never been born.

Further, I would rather prevent a life of suffering in spite of a future person's preference. There are many people that hurt themselves, and society determines it just to thwart their preference.

Your second paragraph suggests you understand what I was getting at. Of those polled only a fraction would have been people experiencing the suffering at the end of life.

99.85% does seem rather high, but I don't think it unreasonable to determine the majority of people have net bad lives.

36% chance of creating an unhappy person then.

This average happiness is potentially overshadowed by life's inevitable suffering - "Nearly 1 in 2 people born in the UK in 1961 will be diagnosed with some form of cancer during their lifetime", "12.7% of all deaths registered in the UK in 2018 were from dementia and Alzheimer disease".

@AmadeusD may not be too far off:

I would say it is most likely the vast, vast, vast (perhaps 99.85%) of people born will, on balance, suffer more than they enjoy their life — AmadeusD

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer on how to identify an inanimate object (e.g. The Ship of Theseus), let alone a conscious being.

My preferred way of identifying an object is: the object goes where the parts go. If anything is changed on Theseus's Ship, it is not the same ship. The benefit of this is when all of the parts have been replaced and all of the original parts are put back together - you have reassembled Theseus's Ship.

While I don't think the brain and the mind are the same thing (so the cells are irrelevant to your identity), "your" mind changes over time - it doesn't have the same parts - so it is not the same person.

In which case, selling drugs would have to be judged on a case-by-case basis: which drug, to whom, under what circumstances; how did they use it, what affect it had. Doesn't that require a lot of usually unavailable information? How does the dealer justify it to a jury? — Vera Mont

Per consequentialism, we could be justified in acting on what is most likely to produce the best outcome. We don't have to KNOW it will produce the best outcome. Doing nothing has consequences too.

Yes, it would have to be judged case by case. Usually we say selling drugs is a bad thing due to the harm it does, but it is baked into my scenario that it would fund treatment to save a family member's life. The harm would have to outweigh that. Which unless sold over a long period, probably won't - especially if its soft drugs like marijuana.

I would use justification and excuse synonymously.
It depends on your moral foundation - if you are consequentialist you would say the action of selling drugs is good if it leads to a net good outcome. In consequentialism the goodness or badness or an action is judged wholly by its consequences.
Mitigation would be used if we accept the action is wrong. It would be arguments that the individual/s that done the wrong were not fully to blame, or that we should be more lenient on them.

Is justification the same as reason, apology, exculpation, defense, plea, rationale, rationalization, pretext, excuse - or something else? — Vera Mont

The word defence is what came to my mind.
A defence for doing something that would otherwise be wrong, or is alleged to be wrong. The justification would be valid if it gives sufficient reason for the wrong, or means no wrong occurred.

What criteria do you use when judging someone's justification for a policy or a course of action? Is it different from the criteria you apply to justifications for an isolated act? — Vera Mont

I think it is the same for an isolated act as for a course of action, policy etc. The criteria is that either the ends justify the means, or that the accusation that a wrong occurred is factually incorrect.

When justifying your own actions or statements, according to what factors do you formulate your argument?

On what grounds do you decide whether a justification is appropriate and valid?

Examples from any area of experience would be helpful. — Vera Mont

The selling of drugs. A valid justification could be that (a) Selling drugs does not harm anyone, or, (b) Selling drugs is a net good (whether an overriding principle of adults to make their own decision, or, because the pleasures they bring people outweigh the sufferings). A strong justification could be an individual selling drugs to fund medical care for a dying family member.

is it exclusively frequentism? Do they also layer on additional types of analysis that aren't as obviously frequentist? — flannel jesus

I can only think of patterns of behaviour being a basis for judging probability. Which I think the definition of frequentism fits.

Seems like frequentism is a bad fit for "What's the probability that Donald Trump wins the election?" for example.

It's not like there's a like-for-like set of comparable situations you can compare this future event to, like you would with coin flips for example - this next election will happen once and will be unique from all elections before and after it. — flannel jesus

I think we predict such probabilities almost exclusively from national and constituency polling, and projections based upon said national and constituency polling. At least here in the UK.
In any event, we judge probabilities based upon patterns of behaviour?

What scenarios doesn't frequentism work for? I had a quick skim through the Stanford entry and believe it said something to the effect that frequentism is a subset of Bayesianism. This seemed odd to me as aren't all probability methods subject to Bayesianism?

how can we still justify livestock farming? — LFranc

I created a similar discussion 4 years ago: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/9917/is-purchasing-factory-farmed-animal-products-ethical/p1

Justifications included:

1. Not being sure that factory farmed animals experience suffering

2. That people need to eat

3. That we cause suffering by driving vehicles but don't ban that

4. That if it wasn't for that outlet the workers would just take their frustrations out on society and their intimate partners

5. That it's no worse than exploitative third world factories that we also contribute to

6. Factory farming is not inherently cruel and abusive. Cruelty and abuse occur in human workplaces and shelters too

7. We are playing a game with each other. There are clear winners and losers.

8. It's more rational to be an egoist and prize our hedonic welfare over others

9. We shouldn't interfere with nature

10. Animals are an easy source of protein

11. Eating animals is responsible for our evolutionary success

Whatever we do to keep ourselves happy, are we doing it to mitigate the suffering that is life? — Arnie

I don't think so. Sex and love bring so much joy and happiness, they are more than mitigating; they hugely contribute to a wonderful life. I suspect the vast majority of people live happy lives.

A few percent of people on the planet (in the hundreds of millions) don't have these things in their life, and live a sad and tortured existence. Maybe 1% (80 million) have lives of unbearable suffering.

Buying meat contributes to suffering and death.

Are you arguing that, like other animals, we are too stupid to make moral decisions?

More redundant than nonsensical. The word Carnot cycle already summons the idea of efficient (100% efficiency to be exact), so "efficient Carnot cycle" is pleonastic, while perfect Carnot cycle is not. — Lionino

If a Carnot cycle is, by definition, 100% efficient, isn't saying "perfect Carnot cycle" redundant too?

For objects defined by their final cause (a lift is that which works as a lift), the goal is already implicit when you use the word. — Lionino

As you say, the word "lift" has its job in the name. Would any lift that can lift be a perfect lift?

I don't think most people would call a really slow, smelly, uncomfortable, ugly lift "perfect".

Isn't narrowing our judgment of perfection to the lift lifting, itself subjective?

But as Lionino explained in his Carnot cycle example there are certain operations that are produced which are perfect with little room for dispute so how do you account for that ? — kindred

While value judgments are ultimately subjective, including perfection, you can say something is objectively perfect for a specific goal. In the Carnot cycle example the goal is the most efficient cycle.

We have to define a goal for there to be any objectivity.

If Civilians are an important part of the war effort then to win the war you must eliminate all important means of the enemies war effort this includes civillians. — Vishagan

You could be facing an enemy with the same value for civilian life, that is only attacking your military targets, or beat an enemy that is willing to kill your civilians by attacking their military targets and having a larger, more powerful military.

Though ultimately people will pick government that promise to protect them by any means necessary.

I think the least problematic answer to these type of thought experiments is that the object goes where the parts go, and only where the parts go. However if consciousness is not an object, it is more difficult.

In reference to the last question I’d say no because I think animal exploitation is wrong and we can still have pleasure, convenience and entertainment without them. — Captain Homicide

Do you still contribute to the animal farming industry though, or have you walked away from Omelas?

Once citizens are old enough to know the truth, most, though initially shocked and disgusted, ultimately acquiesce to this one injustice that secures the happiness of the rest of the city. However, some citizens, young and old, walk away from the city after seeing the child — Down The Rabbit Hole

I think The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas can be applied to many moral questions. "The city's constant state of serenity and splendor requires that a single unfortunate child be kept in perpetual filth, darkness, and misery. Once citizens are old enough to know the truth, most, though initially shocked and disgusted, ultimately acquiesce to this one injustice that secures the happiness of the rest of the city. However, some citizens, young and old, walk away from the city after seeing the child".

Is the life of suffering experienced by factory farmed animals permissible for the pleasure it brings us?

The problem is there being so many different definitions.

I searched "moral nihilism definition" on Microsoft's AI and it replied "Moral nihilism is a philosophical concept that posits that there is no objective morality, and that moral statements are neither true nor false". I searched "Non-cognitivism definition" and it replied "Non-cognitivism is a meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions and thus cannot be true or false".

Both the moral nihilist and non-cognitivist believe that ethical sentences cannot be true or false. The non-cognitivist goes one step further by giving a reason for this (that they do not express propositions).

Isn't this right? And wouldn't this justify calling non-cognitivism a flavour of moral nihilism?

I enjoyed it. I'm a bit of a fanboy and have a copy of all the volumes of his autobiography too.

He wrote History of Western Philosophy in the last two years of the war '44 and '45, so it's a lot newer than Problems of Philosophy which wasn't published until 1912. I'm sure his views changed quite a bit over that more than 30 year difference.

Bertrand Russell "Problems of philosophy" is a nice short intro. It's old but philosophy doesn't change much so it doesn't matter. — bert1

I was going to say Russell's "History of Western Philosophy". I've been meaning to start it again.