What makes a course of events unnatural? Is doing it on a mattress unnatural? — unenlightened

I did get a chuckle over this, but I am referring to ordinary natural events pertaining to conception. That is, if I blow a load in my wife's vagina when she is fertile, the natural course of events is conception. Given this a logical syllogism I must control for what might be called "empirical anomalies," so the natural course of events under the conditions I mentioned are conception; whereas, "all things being equal" controls for hypothetical deviations that could still be considered a "natural course of events" such as spontaneous abortion or miscarriage, fungal infections that would prevent conception, et. al.

That is all....I do prefer doing it in the woods though....That would be all-natural right?

You should probably be careful what you write, or those who are actually kings of the forest, at least on this forum, will shut us down. — T Clark

I think the moral implications of my position can be deduced quite easily without my having to spell them out, perhaps that will "save my skin." If what I have defined is murder, and murder is a crime.....you fill in the blanks....I will not divulge what penalties or lack thereof I would suggest. ;)

I'm not trying, I wouldn't want, and I know I couldn't if I wanted to talk you out of your beliefs. I really running through this for myself. I feel a sense of responsibility to try to put myself in the conceptual shoes of people I disagree with. It's a way of showing respect. It is also at the heart of what it means to practice reason. I feel as if I've fulfilled that responsibility with you. — T Clark

I didn't always hold the views that I currently hold. I grew up in a non-religious home in a culturally christian area and subscribed to both Darwinian and Marxist conceptions of humanity. I was not always a pronatalist and in my first year of college wrote a defense of contraception against religious arguments to the contrary. Obviously, a lot has changed.

I am always open to plain reason, but the arguments have to be sound, not sentimental, and I am seeing A LOT of dismissals, mocking, red-herrings, and slippery slopes on this thread.

How do you reach the conclusion that respecting marriage, even a non-existent one by avoiding premarital sex, is more important than not murdering people? — BlueBanana

I do not understand the question as worded, could you rephrase?

Well, it all strikes me as a rationalization to support your personal moral imperative to have as many kids with your wife as possible. It is just as likely (in fact more so) that there will be more children if we abandoned traditional marital norms and normalized sexual free for alls, making certain no fertile female is unimpregnated.

I realize that there is insufficient wealth to care for all these children as we would wish, but the same holds true for your situation unless you are incredibly wealthy. I expect your community can provide for you if you lack the resources, but I don't believe it could if all your neighbors did as you are.

None of this is to be taken as a criticism of your desire to have a large family, but only as a response to your criticism that others don' — Hanover

I will address this according to section (of which there are three).

1. The first part sounds like a border-line ad-hominem accusation that reads like the preface to a condescending dismissal of anything I have to say, but perhaps that is just my misreading; however, i do find it an an odd critique of an argument that the argument is being used to defend the arguer's position. With with the exception of playing devil's advocate or presenting scientific hypotheticals, when isn't an argument used to justify the position one holds to?

The second part is a legitimate point in that the question of whether or not a pronatalist position is better served by a poly-amorous society over-and-against a monogamous society. Well, I did answer part of this in the response to @T Clark in my point against Polygamy. That is, unless the poly-amorous society could guarantee the 1:1 sex ratio, the situation wherein "Y" would be committed would increase rather than decrease (that is, more, potential persons would be prevented from transitioning into actual persons). However, if a poly-amorous society was somehow regulated to maintain a 1:1 sex ratio (which would be border-line monogamous structurally anyway), the next issue would be providing for the subsequent population. In an elaborate welfare state this may be possible, but that is a highly tenuous suggestion and whether or not mates would want to reproduce and rear offspring under such conditions is highly questionable.

Arguably, our primitive ancestors could have instituted such a system, but marriage in its traditional form seems to have been chosen and enforced because it was demonstrably the best to maximize the production, security, and well-being of offspring. Given the whole of human history, I have not seen any reason to yet doubt their conclusion.

2. I find it odd that a question in the philosophy forum would prompt me to respond with personal information, but this is the first year I have ever made more than $30,000.00 a year in my entire life (which is actually really good money around here), so I am not wealthy. I do not use public welfare, and we have lived quite comfortably as long as I have been married (which is since I was 19). But, I have worked in construction full-time nearly the entire time I was going to school while also having a family with the wife at home with the children. Of course, I work and repair my own vehicles, have bought cheap homes and repaired them to being livable, and have been debt free. I can still afford the little luxuries of life like nice suits, alcohol, tobacco, amazon prime, and several vacations a year....but self-sufficiency, which can be taught, is really how such a lifestyle is doable.

3. I have not criticized other people for not having children. Please demonstrate where I made such a claim to anyone on the Philosophy Forum? What I have done is presented an argument with implications for contraception and have told others that I do not practice it. That is not criticizing others, even if it inadvertently offends them. I presented a syllogism to be debated and presented certain moral implications. IF they are so obviously wrong, then they should be easily refuted without dismissals or critiques of my character being the main case against what I have posted.

You still need additional land for farming, mining, water, factories, business, parks/recreation and energy production. And then there's roads. So it's a bit misleading to only mention being able to cram 7.xx billion people into Texas. — Marchesk

I acknowledge that, but we waste almost 50% of our produced food as it currently stands and we produce more food on less land than ever in human history. Per eating requirements of humans we produce more than enough food for everyone and the Guinea Plateau ALONE could surpass all of our current outputs worldwide. The Texas example is just an example meant to illustrate that the population is manageable as far as space is concerned, and the guinea plateau point illustrates that we do not need much fertile land to sustain that population which can be contained in such a space.

lets say we expanded that population to JUST the continental U.S., to make room for some of the things you mentioned, each family would have a luxurious land allotment and we would still have massive available land for farming throughout the uninhabited world.

The point above is not meant to be a "realistic" scenario of how we should distribute people and resources, it just demonstrates that the the issue IS in fact distribution and resources. The point is not to suggest what can be done, but to properly identify the problem, because if we do not understand the problem, we cannot propose and good solution.

The fact is, the issue is NOT food production and population. the issue is land management and logistics of resource allocation given localized geo-politics. This helps rule out certain solutions, like attempting to explode crop production by creating mutant corn that can grow in Blizzards or sending condoms with our foreign aid packages to the Sudan. Such thinking will result in futility and we will likewise keep having thinkers propose our own infertility in the west as somehow a good idea to help poverty elsewhere, which is mathematically and historically unjustifiable.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

I addressed some of your issue (I think) in my response to T Clark....Otherwise, beautiful poetry.

1. I have added some "further thoughts" for clarification to my original posting of the thread. In essence, I am arguing that Y is modified/understood in terms of circumstance and human intentionality. Thus, if no women existed in the world, then jacking-off would not be potential person destroying (no Y could exist). Likewise, in the context of marriage, "Y" only exists, under the arrangement of the marriage contract, or when conception is ordinarily possible with one's wife. Hence, if a guy jacks off when his wife is fertile, that would be Y, but if he jacked off while she was already pregnant, it would not.

Hence, under my position, it is only an Intentionally Non-Procreative act,if the agent in question is practicing sexuality intentionally to avoid ordinary heterosexual practice, or intentionally preventing pregnancy with his spouse when such was possible. Thus, the position is fairly nuanced.

So, as much as I find Monty Pythons's skit hilarious, it does not apply to my position. My position is not that every sperm is sacred vitae actualis (actual life), but that sperm is, ordinarily (but not always), vitae potentialis (potential life).

I think my syllogism demonstrates this.

2. I will respond to some of your objections below. My specific commentary is also in bold.

Well...., yeah....., No. By your logic, not only all X is Y, also all Z is Y, where Z is not having sex when you are able and fertile.

For males, masturbation is Y. [Only in certain circumstances, I would argue teenagers who are prevented from marrying or having a relationship are a toss-up, jerking-off to prevent the need of having to enter a relationship when it is theoretically possible would be Y, but jacking off on your wife's tits while she was pregnant or getting a blowjob while she was on the rag would not be Y, but doing such things during those time's when she was able to get pregnant would be Y].

Not having sex whenever a fertile member of the opposite sex asks you to is Y. [In the case of a society not conditioned by the regulation of procreation through contractual arrangement (marriage), then yes I agree. Otherwise, the procreative relationship is secured for the benefit of those children's guaranteed survival through marriage, but remember most early societies, including Christian and OT laws, require that premarital sex be remedied by forcible marriage.]

Having sexual relationship with your spouse or lover when they are unable to conceive is Y [False, that is not intentionally non-procreative for potential life does not exist in such circumstances]

For a man, not having sex with as many fertile women as you can is Y. [Actually, the sex ratio between men and women is almost universally 1:1, so for one man to mate with as many women as possible would invariably force other men into a situation of Y, so monogamy is the only moral option collectively].

For a woman, not getting pregnant as often as you can is Y [Correct.]

Being celibate is Y [There may be exceptions here, but generally speaking, yes you are correct.]

Menstruation is Y [No, it is not intentional and unfertilized eggs and uterine lining are not potential life at those times.]

For children, not having sex as soon as you are fertile is Y . [This also depends, circumstantial conditions of society set up contractual relationships to guarantee the survival of offspring that offset the intentional aspect, but generally speaking the principle would imply that the earlier the viable marriage the more preferable it is.]
— T Clark

I see from your postings in "What is the philosophy behind bringing a child to this world?" that you are serious. I didn't mean to be condescending. I can see how important it is to you. I do not share your beliefs. — T Clark

Well, almost no one shares my beliefs, I am a Berkeleyan Immaterialist, A Nietzschean Will-to-Power guy, A Trinitarian Theist, Monarchist, Imperialist, etc....I do not expect people to share my beliefs...but I don't find people's shock to be condescending or offensive, I am almost beyond offense.

A shame about the religious contamination in your thinking. — Banno

Well, feel free to cleanse me of my ways.

Fair enough. Perhaps we can have future interaction on this topic on a thread more specific to the question of how to ethically solve the problem of people & food, etc. As a personal advocate and practitioner of Permacultural technique, I think that would be an excellent area of discussion...From a philosophical perspective of course...

To All,

I have posted a thread in Ethics, Called the Pronatalist Master Argument.....check it out.

Especially you:

Edit: I changed the title to something catchier: "Is Contraception Murder."

I have no children, and have never raised any, but I would like to say that in a world of over 147+million starving orphans; its impairitive that the majority of 1st world citiczens stop having children. Vesectomies should be government sponsored, advertised, free, and given at younger ages. — XanderTheGrey

So that our economies will require these starving third world folks to immigrate in order to stimulate our labor sector and thereby bring their fecundity and incompetence regarding resource allocation here? Wouldn't that just make the whole world to starve instead of just the third world as it currently stands?

I also think it should be advertised that vegan deits use several times less land, water and resources than traditional western style diets. That the entire world could be fed if each world power reduced their livestock production by ~10-20% and realocated the resulting surplus in grain to people. — XanderTheGrey

I already addressed this absurd argument in a different fashion earlier, the problem we have is neither population or food supply, but land management and resource allocation. We currently waste almost 50% of the produced food and the U.S. has more farmable hectares than the whole world is currently using, we increased the amount of food on fewer hectares significantly since the 1970s, and there is enough farmable land in the Guinea Plateau to more than double our current output. The reason orphans are staving has everything to do with their government and their own use of land and knowledge of agriculture. There is enough room in Texas for everyone in the world to live comfortably and the rest of the world could be used for agriculture. That is just simple math. The problem is political and logistical. don't throw out the baby with the bathwater (pun intended).

Apparently you would consider abstinence during what you believed to be your wife's fertile period a form of contraception, and hence prohibited? — Janus

Yes, intentional and not incidental abstinence during my wife's fertile period would be a form of contraception under my position.

Apparently you would consider abstinence during what you believed to be your wife's fertile period a form of contraception, and hence prohibited? This is not most religious people's idea of contraception. The rule for people who believe contraception is wrong seems to be to believe that sex (including blowjobs) for any purpose other than conception is also wrong. — Janus

I am going to respond in two posts, the first (below) will educate you on the religious debate (i don't mean this in a condescending way, but I was in those circles a long time). The second post will address your objection/evaluation of my position.

1. I never justified my position on contraception as murder as "what most religious people believe...." So that is quite irrelevant (and would be a fallacy, argumentum ad populum); nonetheless, this was the position of the reformers and early church fathers, for they permitted sexual conduct between spouses post-menopause, but argued that pregnancy prevention was murder. Calvin's commentary on Genesis 38 is quite informative on this strain. Likewise, Bryan C. Hodge's book the "The Christian Case Against Contraception" makes this very case and is a pretty recent work (it is available on Amazon and is a scholarly work in theology and exegesis).

Like positions in philosophy, such as idealism for instance, positions in theology have diverse sub-groups with their own proponents. The anti-contraception camp is no different and is split into two main groups with each subdivided into two further groups. Group A argues that contraception is generally immoral because it is contrary to God's design/desire for mankind. Group B argues that contraception is murder.

Group A includes conservative Roman Catholics and the Full-Quiver Evangelical types (e.g. the Duggars). The Roman Catholics of this group would argue that the primary purpose of sex is to reproduce, but permit family planning, just as long as no artificial contraception or other types of sexual conduct occur. The Evangelicals in this group argue that children are a blessing from God and that it is impious and lacks faith to practice contraception, but are ambiguous on other types of sexual conduct, but are generally pretty prudish to practice anything but vaginal intercourse in one of two positions....

Group B includes conservative members of the magisterial Reformation, a few hardcore Catholics, some conservative eastern orthodox, etc. all Group B members believe that contraception is murder, but this group is divided by the quesiton of "how" birth control is murder. B1 believes that human sperm is vitae actualis (actual life) and therefore affirm any non-procreative use of the seed as murder. B2 holds that sperm is only ever vitae potentialis (potential life) and is only vitae potentialis during the time of transition into vitae actualis which only occurs during a time when procreation is ordinarily possible; therefore, to intentionally prevent the transition from vitae potentialis to vitae actualis would be murder, and then only. A proponent of B1 is Charles Provan in his work "The Bible and Birth Control." and the Hodge book I mentioned is B2. I hold to B2.

Should we really be assuming physical causation as a valid assumption at all? Perhaps the issue is more about that which is perceived and that which perceives and not so much about the assumptions you posit which assume a host of fallacies.

I intend to post a defense of Berkeleyan-style Immaterialism and phenomenal Idealism in the near future, using concepts from the philosophy of mind....I voted and that will suffice for now....cheers!

Yes, we cannot make the mistake that those who seek open philosophical dialogue are into chaos and mayhem in threads, in fact, I think the Philosophy forum is a little lax on people perpetuating obvious fallacies at will, so it's not like I'm against moderators....I am against censorship, which I believe is completely different. Rules are needed and should be based on the laws of reason and common decency, but ideas themselves should be permitted to be freely expressed so long as they follow the rules of sound argument.

Please vote in the poll if you have not already, I think it would be good for me and the moderators to get a sense of where the philosophers on this site stand regarding the free expression and debate of ideas.

BTW, if you smoke and drink a lot you should also plan to be a cancer patient--probably oral or gut cancer. It would be a shame to die early on your 15 planned children, design business, and PhD advisors.

Not that its any of your business or that it has anything to do with my arguments as presented (red herring?)......but here is my response as to whether I should plan as a cancer patient:

Nah, I don't smoke THAT much, and I am somewhat suspicious of some of the research on tobacco anyway....My life insurance plan guarantees $500,000.00 to my wife, my eldest son will take over the farm, and the rest will split the whats left....the top three oldest living humans in the last fifty years were all chain smokers and regular consumers of alcohol and my time is fixed as far as i'm concerned, so I really don't care...I will eat bacon, drink beer, and smoke and kick ass while doing it....with a name like "bitter crank" I would of expected you to sympathize itstead of being such a pussy.

Too many of the wrong kind of people are having children. Wrong kind? People who can not support their children, do not really know how to rear children successfully (for this time and place), or are very screwed up and will likely pass their screwed upedness on to their unfortunate children. Some people are just plain having too many children. God to the contrary, there just isn't room and resources for everybody.

Ah, some very deep moral sentiments you have there, I suppose you have some sort of logical grounds for your moral edicts regarding child raising, or ought i suppose these to be merely your arbitary opinion and conjecture?

As for resource allocation and "room," that is a malthusian absurdity to the third degree. there is enough room in Texas for the entire world's population for each family of four to have a 2,000 sq ft home and decent yard. there is enough farmable land in the Guinea Plateau alone to feed the entire world's population beyond our current hectaacre output which is also more than sufficient to feed the world's population. The problem is resource allocation and land management, not population and production (actual or potential). To say otherwise is an incredibly uninformed sentiment. The problem is not population-based, or agricultural...the problem is political and I can defend all of these points with source material if you are interested.

"Getting frequent blowjobs" is a form of contraception, and hence murder, according to your own principles.

Only if blowjobs would occur during a time which contraception is ordinarily possible, I do not practice oral sex during a time when my wife would ordinarily be able to conceive, for as I argued in an initial post, a potential life is connected to actual life during the time of potential actualization. I do not believe that sperm (for example) are in themselves actual life (vitae actualis).

Given that you have not seen my Pronatalist Master Argument, I do not see how you could make such presumptions....the fact that you have not given me the benefit of the doubt makes me wonder whether or not you are already engaging in an attempted confirmation bias regarding me.

I have a wife with five children so far and would be classified as a radical pro-natalist. Check out my profile to get the gist of my character and lifestyle.

I have three main grounds that I will list, not in order of importance.

I. I hold to the position that contraception is the same as murder, on the basis of a logical connection between potential and actual life that occurs during the moment of potential actualization. I call this the Pronatalist Master Argument and I can present it if you ask.

II. I subscribe to Divine Command Theory and believe that Holy Writ prohibits the prevention of pregnancy in marriage.

III. I affirm a version of a will-to-power anthropology that is confirmed through a historiographic analysis; wherein, I believe that man's nature and obligation is to conquer and dominate and that when he fails to perpetuate his being and culture through a religiously justified patriarchal & monogamous fecundity, that society loses its collective will and begins to grow decadent and then apathetic and eventually will collapse.

Negatively, I have found anti-natalist arguments quite wanting, especially Benatar's argument from the asymmetry between pleasure and pain experiences, which is both simplistic and assumes an ethical framework guilty of the naturalistic fallacy.

I would have to say that any simulation of humans that I naturally empathise with, regardless of the medium of instantiation, is conscious for me by definition, and to an extent that is dependant on the overall context. — sime

How would you define consciousness then? The presumption of awareness in a observed object on the grounds of your personal imputation of such? Based on your own state of empathy?

...but ultimately, realism is more convincing.

I don't see how the assertion of the improvable (deductively speaking) can be more convincing, but perhaps my standard of what serves as an appropriate criteria by which a philosopher may be convinced is too high....

If realism's claims could be demonstrated in syllogism, I would be more open to the position, but it seems all Realists have followed the sort naive realism of Thomas Reid in one way or another and that just seems to be poor philosophy.

That Berkeley's Idealism was more often ignored than answered is not a secret, but the fact that this state of affairs is not an outrage says more about our biases and corrupt nature than it does about Berkeley's actual premises.

I am not entirely convinced you are not being dismissive of Idealism because you prefaced your thread with a clear dismissal of consideration regarding the position of Idealism and then defended such to me with clear question-begging and an admission of a belief that your position was not provable (metaphysically), but "reasonable" nonetheless (whatever that means).....

Like I said, I would prefer to see you flesh out your realism in a large and thorough post on a new thread (as you have alluded to) rather than banter back-and-forth here. I would like to hear your well-articulated and well thought-out case.

I will be waiting.

To be honest,

I don't really want to derail your thread further from your main topic, I just wanted to voice my objection to you dismissing idealism out of hand.

I am perfectly content to wait until you have created a thread defending realism and science for me to hear out your case and critique it there in a more appropriate context.

I doubt that I will be posting further here, unless I feel it is necessary.

"Proof might not be doable in metaphysics, but I take it to be a most reasonable inference."


Proof in metaphysics is demonstrated by logical necessity established through sound argument via deductive inference, all inferences are either deductive or inductive (inductive inferences are technically fallacious but regarded as reasonable so long as the conclusions are stated in a tentative and non-deductive manner).

In the example you used, "growth" is an imputed meaning to a group disparate perceptions, but there is not metaphysical or epistemic grounds to assert as a truth the belief that the plant grew independent of any one perceiving it. None.

Of course, if all reality in its temporal totality exists in a supreme consciousness from which our limited perceptual states originate, then in some sense the "growth" does happen independent of our own experience.

Your alternative of mystery is unnecessary, and going back to Mary, if qualia are states of consciousness that cannot be reduced to physical attributes by any logical proof, then it seems that percepts being bundles of these sensations (qualia) would imply the non-physical nature of reality as all of reality would be comprehended by these irreducible mental states. That is, all of the world of which we have any knowledge, is mental content, and given that we continuously receive new percepts of which we did not have knowledge, we must ask where such originated.....Well I can tell you they can only come from some other Consciousness, for something cannot give what itself does not have and only a consciousness can have conscious content (percepts and therefore qualia); thus, whatever occurs apart from our personal experience is necessarily occurring in some other Consciousness and that is a sufficient grounds for the objectivity you seek.

no mystery or speculation needed.

All I am saying, is that I do not think you are being intellectually fair to simply dismiss idealism; especially, since the realist interpretation you propose seems to be grounded on assumption, speculation, and lack of deductive proof.

"Presumably consciousness depends on the right material. Pen and paper isn't sufficiently like brain matter to seem a reasonable source of consciousness, but perhaps silicon chips are."


That is a pretty big assumption, at best consciousness, at least our own personal consciousness, can only be assumed to exist in correlation with our own healthy brain states (and this is only an observed correlative and not causal or originating relationship) but beyond that what can actually be proven regarding the conditions of consciousness?

We already have such a scenario. God has all conscious content (perceptual reality) from which we get all of our individual conscious content (the world we perceive). No hypothetical scenarios necessary.

Well that seems like putting the cart before the horse.....

Science assumes answers to questions I just asked you, for instance, if no logical grounds exist to believe in anything other than consciousness and conscious-content...then, for instance, there can be no such thing as physical causation (which science as we understand it assumes axiomatically).

So that seems to beg the question. Science assumes a mind-independent reality, how can you therefore use such to prove the existence of such?

Are you saying that based on the assumption of the existence of a mind-independent physical reality you therefore believe in a mind-independent physical reality? There is a fallacy in there, i'm sure you are aware.....but I am willing to wait for your upcoming thread if I am missing something essential.

Ah, well I can't just let this opportunity at provocation go....so....

On what grounds do you believe that there exists more than consciousness and conscious content?

Why can't you accept #5? That seems like an unsettling declaration that lacks objectivity (no pun intended), or is perhaps based on a misunderstanding of Idealism.....

Oh well...

As it was said of Berkeley's thought in his own time, his arguments could be refuted by no one and yet convinced no one.....sad.

Why do we have to have a theory of memory at all? The assumption of qualia reducing to memory presupposes certain assumptions about human consciousness and the origination of one's mental content that seem to beg some very big questions.

A memory is merely the attribution of time to a percept or mental state such as, but not limited to, qualia.

It seems excessively bold to assert a reductionist relationship between qualia and memory when memory itself is arguably illusory or based on an arbitrary attribution as I mentioned above.


Of course, I am a Phenomenal Idealist and Immaterialist, so I find any attempt to include the perceived brain in a theory of consciousness and conscious-content as patently absurd.