This is why most of the arguments made here are non sequiturs. Whether or not it is wrong to kill a zygote does not depend on how we use the word "human being". — Michael

Ok I found the closest thing to an argument in your post. But that’s dumb. If a zygote IS NOT a human being, it is certainly not wrong to kill it and the debate is over. No one cares about killing a skin cell or a cyst or a lung.

What is a new human being, is one of two essential questions at the heart of the discussion. Otherwise, the state would have little interest in a zygote, like they have little interest in a cyst, and there would be no need for the various governments to make laws regulating women’s pregnancies telling them when they can and can’t kill the fetuses.

Using the word “non sequitor” is a tactic without argumentation.

You whole post here has no argument in it.
You just make statements.

I thought we were talking about abortion and why someone would be “pro-life”.

You mentioned “the word” human being. In the context of abortion, that’s a newborn baby. Every government and regulation says so.

So your philosophical mind isn’t the least bit curious about when a human being actually starts being a human being.

Either way, a woman's bodily autonomy has precedence over a zygote's life. — Michael

Let’s grant this point you made with no argument at all. Grant it. I’ll even grant that the woman has precedence over a toddler and she can throw them into the ocean to drown. Is a zygote a human being, like a newborn baby is?

And pro-life views evaluate the behaviour around abortion in an appallingly bad way! They claim that a cyst has more worth than Mrs Smith!

Thanks for making my case! — Banno

I hate the term pro-life. Using it leads everyone to imprecision about everything. Just like “pro-choice.”

I’m “anti-private-right-to-abortion-without-exception.” Makes a great T-shirt.

There is no pro life position that a cyst is worth MORE than Mrs. Smith (even if what you mean by cyst is an ectopic pregnancy).

1. Persons are not, traditionally, identical to human beings. You used them interchangeably throughout the conversation, and most people are going to deny that rights are grounded in the organism—they usually believe it is grounded in personhood. The question becomes: “(1) when does a human being become a person, and (2) what is personhood?”. Conventionally (right now), personhood is mindhood: it is to be a person. The more I think about it, the more I want to use ‘personhood’ in the pre-modern sense: to have a nature that sets own out as developing into having a mind with a proper, rational will. — Bob Ross

I appreciate that. I am conflating distinguishable concepts of human being and personhood. But I am trying to treat this more plainly. I see the distinction between a human being and it's personhood as a distraction. I am focused on one key moment (or time frame) in the existence of the full human person - when did it first come to exist? Birth? conception? Age of reason? In the mind of God before all time? Never? When.

Further, this is a speculation about the nature of the human subject for sake of addressing the following already established, immovable objects: a newborn baby is a human being and it is one that has a right to life. We can ponder whether a this newborn has a mind, can experience, displays "personhood" etc., but it doesn't matter what we find - we already cannot kill a newborn baby. So the sole focus is, "is there a time before birth, possibly at conception or sometime after, when this newborn being that we now cannot kill and recognize as having rights, should still be treated as a person so as to cause us to protect its body from abortion?" If we stick to physical, demonstrable, observations to base our definitions and conclusions, the moment of conception seems plain. If we stray into the nature of mind, and personhood as if these are distinct from the body, then we will either show that even newborns are not persons, or I'd love to hear a good definition of a human being that clearly demonstrates that a newly conceived fetus is not simply the first moment any of us came to be.

2. For those who are pro-choice, if I were to iron man there position, they have no problem with providing the asymmetry between infanticide and abortion: the latter is the killing of a person, the former (in all permissible cases) is not. The reason I think you, specifically, think this is a problem, is because you are equivocating ‘human beingness’ with ‘personhoodness’. — Bob Ross

I think people are conflating two different issues as one. The moral vagaries surrounding killing persons, and the definition of persons. On the one hand, there is "what is a person/human being (the thing we protect after birth) and when does it begin?" Do we start being human beings the day we are born, which is the same day our right to life is recognized (depending on the state of course, but that's a third issue)? Or do we start being a human being sometime earlier than that or later than that? That is one issue. On the other hand there is the question of, "Because killing human beings or persons is wrong, when is abortion potentially wrong?" The answer may be always, or never, but it is a different issue.

3. When life begins, does nothing to comment on when a life has rights. You are right that, scientifically, it is uncontroversially true that your life began with conception; but this doesn’t directly address if you have any rights upon beginning to exist. You need some further argument for that. — Bob Ross

We are stipulating that all new born babies are human beings, with rights. If it is uncontested that a human life began at conception, and it is a human being such as a baby that has a right to life, I do not see any good arguments grounding a removal of those rights before the baby is born while retaining the fact that it is a human being. What happens in the womb that is so different from a new born that would allow this otherwise individual human life to be seen as not have the same rights as anyone? All the arguments I've seen contradict themselves.

4. “killing people is bad”, as you put it, is not really a good representation of pro-life positions (if we iron man it): a pro-life person (usually) thinks that human beings acquire their rights immediately upon beginning to live and the ends do not justify the means, so it is straightforwardly immoral to abort. — Bob Ross

I'm anti-private-right-of-abortion-without-exception. I'm not pro-life. This conversation has so many permutations. I think people like delving into the minutia before even admitting the common ground they share.

Newborn is a human being.
Killing human beings is to be avoided.
A newly conceived zygote is a prior stage in the life of the newborn.
So a newly conceived zygote is a human being, the killing of which should be avoided.

Avoided, but for any subsequent exceptions somebody might argue for.

Two zygotes can fuse into one, creating a chimera. One zygote can split into two, creating twins. — Michael

True. But how do these possible turns of events detract from what I'm saying occurs at the moment of conception, a conception that occurs prior to any of these other moments anyway?

The mechanics of conception may be broad and are a moving process themselves, true. But the result is the object (or possibly objects in your case) we still have to call a new human zygote. I am saying a new human zygote is the best place to start defining a new human being. Are you saying you agree that a human being started being human at conception and that some of these human beings live for a short time becoming a "chimera" or twins (starting newer human beings in a different way than typical conception)?

The question of what is a human being and when does it come into being is only one question in this discussion, but it is a key question necessary to define what an abortion itself is (removal of a human fetus before birth). Is abortion the killing of a human being or not?

As soon as you accept that the zygote's right to live is not absolute – that sometimes abortion is acceptable – the claim "abortion is unacceptable because the zygote has a right to live" is accepted to be a non sequitur. There is always an explicit "unless there are good reasons to abort". — Michael

You've moved on to address when an abortion is acceptable. I'm just trying to say what an abortion is.

You talk about exceptions. I have to presume you mean exceptions to some rule. Presumably exceptions to a rule like: killing human beings, such as you and me and new born babies, is to be avoided. For example, a rule like: With exceptions in cases of the life and health of the mother, abortion is to be avoided, because abortion is the killing of human beings and killing human beings is to be avoided.

So if you want to have a conversation about exceptions, I have to assume you think that abortion involves the killing of a human being. Otherwise, if the zygote/fetus isn't a human being, killing it does not implicate this rule or its exceptions.

If continued pregnancy will kill the mother then abortion is acceptable. If continued pregnancy will paralyse the mother then abortion is acceptable. If continued pregnancy is not what the mother wants then abortion is acceptable. — Michael

How is that last one an exception? What is your rule, that, without the exception, it would otherwise be wrong for a mother to terminate her pregnancy because she didn't want to be pregnant and/or have a baby? What makes "pregnancy is not what the mother wants" an exception to what rule?

We just disagree on what constitutes good reasons. You might agree that if the mother is at risk of death or paralysis then the reasons to abort are good, but not agree that if the mother doesn't want to continue the pregnancy then the reason to abort is also good. — Michael

I really hadn't commented on my reasons why abortion might be acceptable or not. I never said I agreed that killing any human was a bad thing or not, nor whether killing is sometimes good and best. I merely said an abortion is the killing of a human being.

I agree abortion is acceptable at times. Do you agree abortion is killing a human being?

For purposes of a conversation about when a woman can terminate her own pregnancy, most of us, for some ambiguous reason, agree, that the moment of birth demonstrates a sufficiently formed thing we can justifiably call a human being. Maybe it actually starts sometime before birth, or maybe even a few months after birth, but despite those possibilities, most of us stipulate that the moment of birth is at least the moment a new human being can clearly be individuated and identified as such.

For some other ambiguous reason, we all also agree that all human beings share a similar (maybe not identical) right to life, that human life is valued and to be granted as a right to all who have such life. Murder is wrong, because human life is of value, etc.

All sides of the conversation basically agree with these above statements. We all know we won't go killing any babies once they are born without owning up to killing a baby person, and we all would admit killing baby persons is a big no-no because such things are human beings with the right to life.

But when we now ask of ourselves, "can we abort the human fetus sometime after pregnancy but before birth?" intractable disagreement erupts, confusion runs rampant, and logic plays second-fiddle to emotion and posturing.

Can we abort the human fetus sometime after pregnancy but before birth? It depends on two things: whether all humans deserve the same right to life (are there some humans who can justifiably be killed?); and it depends on whether a newly conceived zygote is a human being, or such a zygote is not a person until much later.

The easier question is: is a newly conceived zygote a human being? Or when does a human life come to exist as a human life? (It's an impossible metaphysical pickle, but a straight forward question.)

It occurs to me, if no one ever wanted to abort a fetus, why would anyone question what we were when we were two-days conceived? We would simply see our two-day-old stage of being whatever we are. This is the basic biology of it. All life works that way. Procreation of a species starts at the moment of conception, and ends with two adults having sex, to start it all over again, and again... these are what each human being most fully is. We are living, changing beings now, in the most basic sense, just as we were living, changing beings the day of our conception. All just different stages and functionings along the same simple way of life.

If someone asked me, "What is the oldest moment when anything about you, anything at all relating to just you, first came to be? When did anything about you make it's first appearance?" I would not answer when I was born. I would have to point to when my unique DNA started doing it's human DNA thing. Just like each one of us. We did not exist, and then we existed, and the oldest piece of what is happening in me right now that I can physically prove and demonstrate in the world today, is connected to the information contained in the DNA present at my conception.

Any moment to claim a new human being first comes to be after conception (such as birth) is arbitrary, unless you want to pick the moment of self-consciousness or some higher function (in which case you are way after birth). Science has to go on the demonstrable and testable - which is, for a human body, the moment of conception. Conception is one demonstrable limitation in the life cycle of a human being - it is the limitation I call, it's starting point. I see no better moment or time period during which a new human being first comes to be.

So maybe the only reason to do the mental acrobatics needed to define the moment a new person comes-to-be as happening sometime after the moment of conception, is to see if we can more easily justify abortion?

If a human being comes to be sometime after conception and before birth, then during the time the zygote is a not a human, we can abort it with as much or little consideration as removing an unwanted mole or kidney. We don't have to address the harder, moral question surrounding when can we kill human beings anyway.

But let's assume that two-day-old human zygotes are little baby people. What demands that the woman refrain from booting the new house guest from the premises? Seems to me nothing does, but a convention regarding the value of human beings. Because we can easily use reason to say "Adult women are more valuable than unformed zygote humans, and as human zygotes only exist within the pregnant woman's body, she should get to decide what to do about the zygote.

This argument is both ridiculous (as it undermines the function of any moral law) and impossible to refute (as no one agrees on an objective morality beyond the vague, ambiguous, "killing people is bad").

So can a woman abort her tiny one-celled human being?

So my approach is, the intellectually honest position is to admit you first existed at the moment you were conceived in your mother's woman, as all humans beings trace their presence back to this moment and nothing before then. And then admit we adults all have a choice when it comes to morality - do we want a universal morality or not? If we don't, we can let people decide for themselves which human zygotes get to go on living (squatters that they are), and which do not. If we do want to say "All humans have an equal right to life" then we have to say "I will not kill human zygotes." (We can deal with exceptions to the rules later, as when the life of the mother and zygote compete with each other, or other reasons.)

And my approach to this is, there is no morality without an objective morality. If we live in a world where each of us gets to decide whether to kill this or that person, we may as well say we live in a world where there are no rules. People are idiots, including you and me. Maybe we shouldn't value ourselves at all, in which case abortion makes total sense. But if we, for some ambiguous reason, want to say human beings are wonderful flowers on the face of this universe, highly valued and not to be killed, then we are stuck with the beauty of two-day-old baby Ziggy too.

To be a law of logic, a principle must hold in complete generality
No principle holds in complete generality
____________________
There are no laws of logic. — Gillian Russell

To be an argument, words as premises and words as conclusions must be related with [laws of] logic.
Gillian Russell made an argument.
______________________
There is [laws of] logic.

I think this distinction is resisted in contemporary culture because it's politically incorrect. There's an aversion to the Christian doctrine … It's today's 'popular wisdom'.

There's also the sense that we believe Darwinism has shown that we're on a continuum with other species, and this provides the satisfaction of us being part of nature...

This is where I think a philosophical critique of naturalism fits in, but I won't advance it again, as it's clearly not registering. — Wayfarer

It registers here.

People invest a lot in the observation that we humans, like many other animals, are “higher” animals on the evolutionary continuum. This allows them to humble human beings making them closer to the animals (and with no need of religion). But still allows pride in the argument as we human apes reign as the highest in rational ability. We are still the only animals who do, in fact, rank continuums.

I would say, this ranking process (called rationality to generalize it) requires something that the animals do not need to exhibit to explain their behavior. Instinct and structure are all my dogs need to be so brilliant.

My take is, in order to discuss this topic with a truly skeptical eye, to hell with the hierarchies and even all continuums. There is no evolutionary continuum between chemical motions and biological motions. At some point chemicals mixed enough to begin a new occurrence called the evolution of life. Before that, there was no selection and mutation in any species. Evolution was once new. And then, by my observation, humans (and only humans) at some point started talking about it all. The human mind (with reason, language, concepts and judgment) was once new as well. So just like at some point chemicals stopped just being chemicals and life began being life, at some point animal consciousness stops being animal consciousness and started being human, being personal.

We are personifying the other animals by placing them on our same human continuum, just like a single-cell would be speaking metaphorically if it said saline “come to life” when you mix H2O with NaCl. There is no life in saline solution. In my view, there is likely no deliberative, rational process in my beautiful dogs.

We can have some other conversation about whether persons are higher than other animals or animals are higher than plants, or life and evolution are higher than chemical motions. But for now, I just see the differences, not the continuums.

There are such vast differences between what humans are and what the other “higher animals” are. Like there are vast differences between what early RNA was doing and what chemicals do.

“Evolution” has been fetishized to explain too much.

Wonder if it would catch on.

I guess the only thing I would add is I would make the outcome either come sooner, or less up to we human beings. To me, what God has done is enough, and we’re all getting there, but he’s given us so much power over the process. I like being free though (when I occasionally am free), so maybe he knows what I want better than me.

“The World’s Religions” by Huston Smith.

I'd take the form of a man, live a simple life, teach everyone how to be and what is true, withstand the rejection and keep teaching and being an example, die a public humiliating tortuous death on a cross at the hands of the rest of us, be buried, rise again to give everyone hope, forgive anyone who asked for forgiveness for the crap we pull day-in and day-out (such as killing God for telling us to love one another), and tell everyone to keep trying and that I would be with them.

I wouldn't write a word down either while I was here because of our post-Heideggerian deconstructionist tendencies. (Total hassle leaving people free to think for themselves, but it yields the best people - people who consider "best" as something to consider.)

God is interested in people. So interested he became one of us to make it easy for us to understand that. So interested, that he would take a punishment for wrong-doing, to show us that wrong-doing leads to misery and death (because despite the hangovers after drinking too much, we fail to learn anything that isn't easy and continue to destroy ourselves), and take this punishment in a painful way even after living a life free of any wrong-doing whatsoever, and so, be the recompense none of us can be for each other, and physically rise from the dead to show us what this is all about - living with God as his friends, his family by adoption, forever.

But then, if I would do this if I were God, I'd be doing much better now. Good thing for the rest of you (and myself) that I'm not God.

Determinism is happening. That’s a given. Things are the way they are because of the way their causes were, and things become what they become because of the way they are.

But people, at least, in reflection, remove themselves from the causal chain and make decisions. These decisions are essentially giving their consent to the fact of the causal chain.

So we create the conditions for freedom, namely, a position removed from the deterministic causal chain, by reflecting on the objects perceived to be within the causal chain, and then developing a future possible state, selecting one future possible state, and then, now consenting to this state in the selection, rejoining the causal chain to enact a physical and fact or result of one’s choice.

Sounds fantastical. But what is reflection but a view once-removed from the initial “flection” - it’s a reflection, and so removed from the initial stimulus. (Removed from the initial movement.)

We make this reflection in our minds and in this reflection can evaluate and make a “choice”.

So the question then becomes, is anyone in control of when they will stop to reflect and consider the possibility of a making a choice? Is anyone in control of which objects they will conceptualize about and consider as choices?

I think it is difficult to actually be free - one has to be free from oneself as well as the rest of the causal chain in order to be truly removed enough to make a truly free choice, but the mechanism for freedom exists in the mechanism of self-reflection.

And in the end, a free choice is more like consent than it is a development of what someone wants. We think of freedom as arising in a desire or what we want. Like “I want ice cream and so freely choose strawberry because I like strawberry better.” But life is more like this: “whether you like it or lot, whether you want it or not, you are going to eat ice cream and you are going to choose strawberry today - do you consent?”

Basically, we on all on the causal, deterministic roller-coaster ride of life, but we have the ability to reflect on this while we are twisting and turning and looping around the tracks - we can reflect on where we are headed and consent to it, take responsibility for it in our reflection, or we just continue along the ride, leaving all physical effects to their physical causes, never reflecting on it.

Freedom, therefore, goes hand in hand with reason. There is no room for freedom in a world without reflection (reasoning), and there is no space or time for reflection absent a moment or mind where one withholds consent.

My view is close to compatibilism, but I give the free agent, the reflecting mind, enough weight to actually impact the outcome and effect change in the causal chain - to be a cause.

We stop the chain (or remove ourselves from it) by reflecting, and we create a new, uncaused object out of our concepts and choices, then consenting to this choice within our reflecting minds, effect something back in the causal chain but now creating an effect based on our choice in reflection, not an effect based on the physical chain of causes only.

We invent ourselves, invent our choices, identify ourselves with those choices, then consent to our bodies which have physical causes and effects being identical to these choices and identities in reflection thereby closing the loop and rejoining the causal chain.

Really hard to explain and really hard to make a truly free decision. We are all slaves by default. If we can identify biases, physical forces, use reason, we might be able to choose something that is otherwise uncaused by anyone but this reflective process (which is ourselves).

only one - so far - is capable of inventing technology, medicine, politics, religion and torture. — Vera Mont

That is my point. We are the only one who invented knowledge and concepts and base our actions on these.

If you would even say “only one” you should able to see my simple point.

I don’t saddle my dogs with the ability to behave according to whatever faculty in me invented “politics” or language. My dogs are not doing a simple version of thinking like me, they are doing a complex version of instinct like me. Only people think or conceptualize their own consciousness.

However, sometimes domestic animals do chase imaginary prey or cringe from non-existent threats. — Vera Mont

So sometimes animals are irrational? And there is mental illness? So more rational is better than less rational or irrational? If so, is something that behaves without using reason at all, say a river flowing downstream, is much lower and less than a rational thing?

You didn’t address any distinction between instinct as a cause of behavior and thinking as a cause of behavior.

And you missed the distinction between seeing rationality in something, like seeing it in the pile of characters “2+2=4”, and using thought and logic and reason to form a choice and then acting on that thought and choice. If you say a dog is behaving reasonably, you aren’t saying the same thing as the dog is using reason in order to base his behavior. That’s two different things. Rationality may be everywhere. Only humans seem to notice it and manipulate it with thoughts and concepts (or give a damn to bother with these constructions).

Animals are better than us because they don’t use reason, or even need to. Saying they do is just a quick and easy explanation, making them like us, like reason is so special and instinct is less special.

Seems to me that is an explanation for everything.
You are mistaken (hasty generalization). — 180 Proof

What else is there besides vacuum fluctuations?

Humans see a lot of things that are not there; some of these things are more plausible than others. — Vera Mont

By “see” you mean more precisely “conceive of” because we are talking about thinking, not just vision.

If you think animals think, then you are saying animals must conceive of a lot of things that aren’t there as well. (Why would you do that to animals?)

Do you think rational animals are higher, better beings than say, a vegetable too?

the universe is only an expanding (cooling, or entropic) vacuum fluctuation that is/was random / acausal / non-intelligent. — 180 Proof

Would you say that explains everything?

A cat is only an expanding (cooling or entropic) vacuum fluctuation? A supernova? 14 galaxies? A number? Your self?

Seems to me that is an explanation for everything. Mic drop type “wisdom” for the ages. Conversation over. Whatever the next question is the answer is some other vacuum fluctuation. Chocolate and vanilla are both the same - versions of vacuum fluctuations.

1. There is a difference between rational behavior, and behaving according to reason. It is certainly rational to pull one's hand out of fire if one wants to keep one's hand from being destroyed. But we don't say: "Boy, when your hand went into that fire and you pulled it out, you did some quick thinking and came up with a really rational response." The hand was not pulled out of the fire because of a thought process, balancing various concepts, choosing the most logical and then taking action. It is instinctual to pull a hand out of fire. It's not behavior that is according to reason; it's behavior according to instinct or reflex. Those instincts can later be rationalized (saving hands from destruction is the purpose of the reflex, or at least the result of the development of that reflex), but the actor, the person with the hand, wasn't behaving according to reason when his own hand flew out of the fire. Human beings can both recognize the rationality of certain actions and functions (after the fact, post hoc), and they can use reason to develop causes behind their own behaviors before they behave according to those thoughts. People who are saying animals are simpler versions of humans using reason are seeing rationality after the fact and asserting the animal must have seen that rationality before the fact and then acted according to that reason. But rationality in a function doesn't mean there is an actor who thought about that rationality before the function occurred and then acted according to that rationality. 2+2+4 shows rationality, but we don't need to think 2 is being rational when it adds 2 more to itself to make itself, now plus the other 2, equal to 4. That's silly. There are no agents or desires or things communicated within the rational pile of characters "2+2=4".

2. I'm talking about behaving according to reason. Do animals use reason to inform their actions before they act? People seem to be saying that animal behavior, like human behavior, shows evidence of being influenced by some level of that animal's thoughts. Thinking, conceptualizing, wanting and choosing leading to actions. I disagree, for many reasons.

A dog wants to lick a bowl. So the dog begs. When the person looks at the dog, the dog moves his eyes to the bowl to communicate or tell the person what he wants. The dogs sits very still like a good boy, wags his tail, gets the person's attention and looks at the bowl and looks at the person, and looks at the bowl. The dog must be conceptualizing licking the bowl and using reasonable methods to bring about a future state of actually having the bowl and getting the person to help him bring about that future state by communicating that conceptualized mental state in the dog. Right? Sounds like a rational explanation for why the dog looks at the bowl and then looks at the person and begs. We insert rational agency into the dog and use it to explain behavior. Makes sense.

Eyeballs are designed to sense light and the brain uses this to locate objects. The system works very well, especially for some birds. The development of the binocular vision is so complex, so purposeful, it doesn't seem like it could have arisen without a designer. Therefore, to explain the existence of eyeballs, we can insert a rational designer at work over millions of years to bring about a purpose called vision.

That's what we are doing when we insert rationality in animal agents. We can't explain their behavior without saying it is like our behavior, so we just say they must be doing what we are doing. But like intelligent design, saying a dog is using reason and thinking things, is not the only explanation, nor the simplest or demonstrative of the most evidence.

3. Instinct. Humans are animals and dogs are animals. Both, at times, act according to instinct. We just do what we do because of the stimuli and the way we are structured. Humans, like those on this thread, sometimes, instead of instinct (maybe), conceptualize things like "behavior" and "communication" and other things we are talking about here on this post. We think. Humans, use the concepts to develop "reasons" or optional choices for ourselves, and then, sometimes, base our actions on these thoughts. We choose to hold our hand in the fire no matter how much it hurts because of thoughts that this will make some brilliant philosophical point (or whatever). We act both according to instinct (pull the hand out quickly), and according to rationality (keep the hand in, or never touch the fire, or whatever the thought is).

Do we really need rational thought to explain what animals do? Couldn't their instincts be so highly developed that they never need any thoughts to move from the present into the future? I say, certainly could. I do all kinds of rational things without thinking. A ball is hurling at my head and I duck and the ball misses me - does that make me really smart? I need to move a heavy stone, so I set up a lever and move it - does that mean I've communicated my desire for the stone to move to the stone?

This speaks to all of the accusations that saying animals do not use reason or thought to inform their actions is elitist; saying humans think they are better than animals because we can use reason. But it is just as elitist to say humans and dogs both use reason, but humans are just better at it.

Who cares for a minute whether instinct or reason is more complex or better than the other? Not me. I'm trying to make a reasoned argument, communicate it to other people. My dogs could care less about any of this - that makes them innocent and pure, maybe geniuses, not stupid.

So the creature who uses reason, the human, sees rational thought all over the universe - is it possible that we are narrowly, simple-mindedly, rationalizing or personifying all of these other things to be just like us? I say yes. No wonder we see animals as rational agents - we are too proud of being rational agents ourselves to deny it of other creatures.

If a dog could talk (and therefore display evidence of an ability to think and reason), might they say "keep your slow moving thoughts and reasons to yourself - I need none of it ever."

I say, for sake of this point I'm making, instinct is way better than reason. If the goal of living things is to live, to procreate and live more, then the sequoia tree or the fungus is way more advanced than we reasoning animals. If the sequoia tree could talk they could say "take my lifespan and shove that up your hierarchical, rationalizing ass - plus, I don't have an ass."

Instinct is good enough. Amazing enough. Complex enough.

4. Philosophy of Mind. Saying my dog is communicating with me when he begs for food is placing a mind of his own in the dog. This places all of the epistemological problems of knowledge, the mind-body problem, questions of free-agency and choice, all in the dog. To simply think "I am hungry" is to think "I am." So we are saying dogs create the same illusory, ill-defined "self" in their consciousness and build communication methods like begging postures in order to share these self-reflections with some other self for a that dog's purposes and conceptualized intentions. We are saying the dog, in some simpler fashion, feels his hunger and then thinks of ways to communicate the concept of hunger (not the feeling itself) to some other creature in response to this thought. But why saddle the dog with all of this "rational" activity of mind? Neither humans nor dogs are behaving according to reason when they feel hunger. We don't think "I need to consume energy to live, so I should make myself feel hungry." We just feel hungry. Like an instinct. Dogs, it seems to me, don't feel hunger and then ask themselves "what can I do to satisfy this hunger?" Just like the hunger just is because of their structure, begging just is because of the dog's structure. There need be no theoretical, hypothesis formation in a dog's mind; they don't have to think "If, theoretically, I beg, and look cute, I can convince that person to move the bowl to the floor." They don't form this hypothesis and then experiment with different cute acts second. They just feel hunger; this produces certain other behaviors; I happen to think it's cute; and sometimes this produces licking bowls. All of the rationalization of what should "I" do next to communicate "my mind" to that "other mind" so that the "other mind" will take certain actions that "I want" - that's all just as weak of an explanation as intelligent design to explain why the earth needed a moon to regulate the tides - God placed a moon there to help build the earthly environment, like I place a mind in a dog to help build a rational explanation for how good he is at obtaining bowls to lick.

5. What I am saying and what I am not saying. I am saying this: the chemical is not a living thing. Fire is a chemical reaction. Fire consumes fuel, produces waste, breathes oxygen, moves itself. But fire isn't alive. We can "breath life into the hot coals and revive the fire" but this is metaphor. The plant is a living thing. Plants are not better than fires because plants live and fires don't. Plants are different than fires. Period. Animals are alive like plants, but animals can move themselves to food, better adapt to acute environmental changes (like run from a forest fire), but animals can accidentally jump into fire or run themselves to a place where there is no food at all, or fall into the sea and drown. Animals are not better or higher than plants either, just like a living thing isn't higher or better or more complex than a chemical reaction. Humans can use reason. Reason can be used to obtain food, adapt to environment, etc. This does not mean humans must be better than animals or higher than animals because they use reason; I see no reason to saddle other animals with reasoning minds, like I see no reason to saddle fire with being "alive" in a biological sense (not a metaphorical sense). The chemical is not a living thing. The plant is not an animal. The animal is not a reasoning mind. These are all different. All with their own complexities and goods and beauties, and simplicities, bads, and uglinesses.

Lastly, none of the above speaks to what reason really is. Reason happens in a mind. Minds happen in a consciousness. Animals have a consciousness. So, just like my dog, I am a conscious, sensing, perceiving being. Somewhere in the evolutionary process, animal consciousness, along with sense perception, came to include concepts and thoughts. Like the chemical became the protein, and the protein became the cell, and the cell became the animal, the human animal became "self" conscious or a thinking, reflecting thing.

I think many people are too enamored with the idea that humans are on the same scale as the other higher mammals. We are, but, just like it is imprecise to say a fire and a dog are living beings, it is imprecise to say that all animal consciousness must involve concepts, thoughts, logic and decisions.

We personify the universe in intelligent design. And we are doing it again talking about what our dog is "thinking" and communicating to us. My dogs have no time to think. Only we humans take time to think about whether something else thinks about anything. We just do. They just don't. That's okay with me. In fact, it makes them more amazing to me. I can't imagine getting through this life without thinking and planning and testing and planning again at some point, yet they do such amazing things I could never do, all by instinct and their complex, beautiful structure.

She is a highly educated and successful woman, but under the circumstances, she was like a barking dog towards me. — Athena

When the air in my house is above 75 degrees, the air conditioning goes on and the house is cooled and the thermostat reacts to the cooler temperature and shuts off the air conditioner.

I could say that my air conditioner uses its thermostat to sense the temperature and then desires to cool the house so it rationally engages the air conditioner until the house reaches the system’s desired temperature.

Or I could just say it’s all a system of stimuli and responses with no inner life, self-awareness, decision-making capability or rational capability.

We could say the same thing about animals.

Determinists (use reason) to say the same thing about humans.

Maybe the better question is do humans have the ability to reason? My answer would be that formulating a question like that displays behavior of a being capable of reason.

Animals don’t ask questions. Ever.

I have two dogs. I love them. But they aren’t using reason. They are predictable because of their structure, not because of their adherence to reason. My dog is sitting at my foot leaning on me right now. He’s not communicating or hoping I like what he’s doing. He just feels good enough to pass out at my feet right now. When he begs at the dinnner table, there is no plan or thought or reason behind how his ear flops and looks cute enough to convince me to give him a treat. He’s just does what he does, and benefits from it working. If it didn’t work, he wouldn’t wonder how it didn’t work because it was perfectly reasonable to him and try to improve the reasoning. He would just be pushed into the next posture and position. Probably licking something.

We can’t even understand the nature of our own behavior when we use reason or make a choice or reflect on our own minds, but for some reason, because we love them I suppose, we see so much reason and choice and mental activity in animals.

we still read off their reasons — Ludwig V

Because we use reason. Animals don’t read reasons. Otherwise we read off of smells and visions and feelings. Like other animals. And “read” in this context is metaphor for sensation. We read reasons, Animals don’t read anything (except metaphorically).

Rational behaviour is not just a set of behaviours distinct from everything else - talking, pondering etc. Rationality is on display in nearly everything that we do. — Ludwig V

Barking is a behavior.
Dogs and humans might sense the loudness of the barking and so you might say as a metaphor that dogs and humans sense the loudness of this behavior. A dog doesn’t wonder if he is barking loud enough, if the volume of his barking is a reasonable volume to convey its fear of the cougar to the rest of the pack. The dog sees the cougar, and the dog barks.

Dogs don’t read the rationality of this behavior. We humans alone exhibit reason and rationalize about it. Dogs just react accordingly. We humans can judge a dog’s reaction as a rational response or not, but I see no evidence that a dog is using reason prior to any response or after the fact, or during a “communication.” A dog is built to receive certain sensations and built to respond to those sensations. We watch a bunch of dogs and start to see patterns and then say “that dog is barking for a reason, that reason being there is a cougar in sight.” But really, the dog’s body sees the cougar and the dog’s body starts to bark (all the dogs that saw cougars and don’t bark were eaten and weeded out of the gene pool). The dog didn’t see the cougar and use reason to know barking loudly makes the most sense is the most rational behavior among a list of other behaviors. The dog just barks, making no choice, having no thought behind it, utterly unaware of the rationality that can be found in this by humans.

I see reason and thinking and willing and judgment and language all tied up together. You have one of these, you say one of these words, you also conjure up the others. Reason involves logical inference, representational language, judgment and choice. We have to use reason to deliberate and make a choice. We have to use judgment to choose what objects are the most reasonable objects to deliberate about. When we focus our reason on a subject, we are choosing that focus. These are all human things.

Dogs don’t need any of that to exhibit all of the behaviors they exhibit.

Man sees a cougar and instead of yelling “look out!” he deliberates how best to save the people that don’t yet see the cougar. Should the man consider the bird flying overhead? Should the man be thinking about whether yelling at the cougar will trigger it to pounce? Should the man be thinking about chocolate ice cream? If he is trying to help those other people, some of those thoughts are reasonable. Some aren’t. Should the man be thinking that he is wasting time thinking and he should react right now instead? “Look out for that cougar!!!”

Dogs don’t bother with all of that. They always bark, which works good enough for the majority of dogs.

The very fact that we humans see “rationality” in the universe at all, and then talk about it, is behavior exhibited nowhere else besides humans.

It may be rational in a human being’s eyes for a dog to feel fear and bark at the sight of a cougar. We humans can make these connections and see this rationality in the dog’s behavior. But it does not appear to be “rational” to the dog. Is see no evidence that the dog itself used reason or had a reason for barking. The dog never appears aware of the rationality or irrationality of anything (or the dog might start trying new things or discussing options and choices with his pack mates, or the barking would have to become language and more complicated “communication”.)

How do you know that their behaviour is not rational "like our behaviour is rational"? Is there some other kind of rational that it could be? — Ludwig V

Animals have behaviors, many of which humans share (eating, sleeping, hunting, etc.). One of the behaviors humans exhibit is reasoning, or being rational. This involves language and communication with other reasoners.

I see no need to explain the behavior of animals as involving the human behavior we call reasoning.

There is no reason to think the sun is communicating with Mercury when the sun heats it up. The sun never says “look at me, see how hot I am.” We could use that metaphor, but we would be silly to assume that Mercury could be conscious of the sun or its communication, or that the sun is conscious of itself as bright and hot or that the sun now conscious of this would try to communicate it.

I think because animals have consciousness and because reason pervades human consciousness so deeply, we just assume (personify) that all higher consciousness involves an inner life of reasoning and communicable conceptualizing. I disagree.

Animals make sounds and other other animals react to those sounds. Humans see this as communication. But the animal that made the sound may have been forced to make that sound by some conditions, just like the other animal that responded to that sound was forced to respond. Nothing need be in between them called a “communication” - we reasoning humans make that relationship and call it a separate thing called “communication.” These are just on-off switches.

Because of the debate between free will and determinism, we might say that humans are not actually rational either, incapable of communicating a single communication clearly. Equating human behavior with animal behavior along the lines that none of us are using reason or making communications seems an easier argument than saying human and animal behaviors are equal in that they both involve levels of reasoning and communication.

Dog barks to warn the pack? Or a dog sees something and just bursts into a bark? Pack hears one of its members making barking sounds and thinks “what is wrong?” Or pack just hears barking sounds and moves directly towards whatever range of responses have survived the evolutionary process?

Dogs may be better off because they don’t reason. No such thing a paralysis by analysis for any other than a rational being.

It’s very romantic to personify things. Like the warm embrace of the dawn after the night’s unrelenting assault of darkness and cold. But not necessary to explain it. There is no dawn or night who is communicating anything.

Lastly, this doesn’t mean reason didn’t arise in the universe from physical causes. That’s a different question too. Again, who cares whether dogs or humans live better, or worse, or higher or lower - I’m not attributing reason to a higher, immortal soul or something - but saying humans and dogs both reason and communicate makes no sense to me. (Although the vast, vast majority of people today talk like this and believe this.)

Humans bother to seek and communicate reasons and ideas through language with other humans. Dogs don’t bother with all of that. Neither does the sun. Every sound isn’t a word. Every response of a conscious animal isn’t born out of a self-reflective process of reasoning.

I don’t know this for sure.

But seems to me, if any thing in the universe used reason, it could make that ability clear to me by communication. Nothing else bothers to communicate a reasonable idea besides other humans.

where Evidence and Facts are absent — I like sushi

Oh. So the issue is purely psychological. All evidence for god is hallucinatory or fraud.

You are saying humans have psychological drive (for some unknown reason) to reach the highest high and brag about it to other humans.

My sense of philosophers is the opposite - I ask of them all, why do others take this one seriously? What was this philosopher’s take and why did it gather enough traction to find its way to all of us?

That is always interesting to me.

And conversely, I never understood how someone could say “I am a Hedeggerian, or I’m a Platonist or I’m a Kantian.” None of them said enough that I would place myself under such a narrow bucket. Never understood that.

But to answer your question from the other side, the philosophers who said the most and are the most interesting (to me) are Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche (and existentialism). But you need so many others to really see what they are talking about, and those others said so many things not addressed by these.

The most over-rated, for me, are Wittgenstein and Heidegger. And the most under-appreciated are Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Hegel.

And in the west, eastern thought (Vedanta, Taoism, Buddhism) is under-appreciated. Perfectly interesting metaphysics, epistemology, ontological and empirical observation, and great ethics and even some good politics all over eastern thought.

If one really engages in the questions and the conversation, you become interested in a lot. Schopenhauer is as important as Sextus Empiricus or John Locke if you really are digging.

All of Post-modernism - Derrida, Foucault, Rorty, Lyotard - way over-rated. But interesting. (If find it most interesting that, given the conclusions and dogma of the post-modernists, that they continue speaking at all.)

having a competitive streak in the realm of abstraction that led to ideas of God and other comparative ideological schemes beyond the Western concept of God? — I like sushi

Is this question being asked on the assumption that there is no actual god, and that “god” like a “garden gnome” was purely fabricated for some small individual purpose or simple pleasure?

When you abstract, you make a universal. When you make a universal, you now see something else besides the particular. You see particulars and abstractions or universals.

So I wouldn’t say you need competitiveness or exaggeration to come up with the idea of god. God shows up when you abstract the abstraction and universalize making universals. God is the universal mind like a mind makes the universal everything else.

In other words, by simply being a human and simply forming abstractions, forming an abstraction of a universal mind seems inevitable.

Thunder and lightening are the hand of Thor or Zeus - from thunder and lightening we abstract the idea of power over and above human control and survival, the abstract of idea of life and death itself (a universal like “biology”)and then seeing that some people do survive such powerful, uncontrolled experiences, we abstract the idea of a person behind such power so we can give an account of why some survive the thunderstorm and others do not. Hence Thor.

One can universalize the abstract idea of love and build a god.
Or the universal idea of intelligence and build a creator.
Or the universal idea of balance and build a whole religion or set of practices.

"Existence of God" (false predication) =/= "God exists" (re: matter of fact). — 180 Proof

We are actually agreeing here. The OP asks if anyone can “prove a god”.

”proof" pertains only to logic and mathematics, not to matters of fact, — 180 Proof

That’s my point. I took the OP to be asking for someone to argue (provide words) whose conclusion is “therefore God exists.” (More words).

"God" is an empty name that "exists" only in the heads — 180 Proof

Right. That’s your experience. You talk about essential features such as “name” and “empty” in reference to a “God” and the assert it exists in heads. That’s a common experience (or lack thereof).

My point is that if God is sitting anywhere, in a head occupying an empty placeholder space or on a throne in heaven, the existence of this God itself cannot be proven. We are only able to use proofs to prove WHAT a God is (such as an empty name), but you can’t prove the existence of this thing, be it a God or an emptiness in a head.

Proof is for drawing connections/relations between things that we otherwise assume or assert exist. Proof doesn’t come to a conclusion showing that one of these assumptions must exist absent its relation to anything.

I can prove if 2 is added with 2 you get 4. I can’t prove 2 exists. Or addition. Or 4.

Can anyone prove a god, I enjoy debates and wish to see the arguments posed in favour of the existence of a god. — CallMeDirac

Can anyone prove the existence of their self? (I mean Descartes thought he did, but he only proved his self to his self. He didn’t prove Descartes existed to any of us.)

Can anyone prove the existence of the philosophy forum?

I don’t think existence is subject to proof. All of the philosophers who assert existence as a conclusion at the end of an argument are wrong, or they are really talking about what the essence of some existing thing is, rather than the existence of that thing.

Proofs are about what a thing is and what it is not, not whether a thing is or whether it is not.

The only proof for God’s existence (or the existence of any particular object) would come from one individual’s experience and would only serve as “proof” to that particular individual about the existence of some particular thing.

We don’t prove existence. We assert “if X exists…” and then make proofs concerning attributes about X. But X might not exist and can never be made into a proof.

"I" is the entire process. We are misled into thinking that decision is separate from action is just a result of the fact that we can interrupt the process of action part way through - aborting a process, not completing one process and starting the next. If you think of decision as an action distinct from execution, you end up with an infinite regress. — Ludwig V

Good stuff.

Reflection (mind that is minding, or “I” that is “I-ing”), is the interruption. Reflection has its own motion, but it is an interruption of the motion of that which it is reflecting on. So the movement of reflection creates a stillness in the thing someone is reflecting on.

This creates confusion about what is moving and what is staying the same.

My sense is that animals don’t waste any of this time - they don’t interrupt the motion by creating a still reflection (of a moving thing) that they can reflect upon.

Do animals have rational thinking? Do animals have communication skills? Is intuitive thinking rational or maybe something better? — Athena

I see “rational thinking” and “communication skills” as parts of one thing - rational thinking is communicable thinking, communicable to other thinking (reasoning) things. Reason and language or math cohabitate the same moment.

Animals don’t need any of it. We personify animals when we call their behavior rational like our behavior is rational.

Our hand falls in the fire and our arm pulls it out. No rational thinking or communication necessary. Just a functioning body. That could be how animals do everything they do - they don’t reason and choose. They act. They function. Stimulus and response based on the shape of the stimulus and the shape of the responder.

Humans insert “reason” and deliberate some responses. We draw these deliberations out by communicating our reasons with other humans.

Our reasoning and communicating abilities sprouted from being an animal, so there is some value in comparing what humans do in reasonable deliberation with what animals do when they appear to have choices and when they appear to deliberate their behaviors, but once we see “rational thinking” and “communication” in any animal, we see a person. So if animals used rational thinking and communication, they would be people.

We only KNOW there is any other rational being in the universe when another rational being declares its reasons in a communication; otherwise how would we know? As soon as an animal is able to use reason, that animal is able to communicate with other reasoning minds. So as soon as an ape finds actual reason working in their conscious experience, we might be able to communicate with it and actually confirm it is using reason as it communicates reasonably.

Animals only appear to use reason and to communicate their minds because WE reasoning communicating creatures see ourselves in them, NOT because we see them.

They are better than that. Innocent of all moral deliberation and choice. Conscious thought would be more like a plague or disease to an animal. They already have no illusions (because they have no sense of illusion), so what is there for them to reason about? What communication is needed when they are all by nature already on the same exact page?

We have a narcissistic sense of animals when we pull reason and communication out of their behavior. We also have an imprecise sense of reason and communication when we find it in between two animals (unless those two animals are people.

Bee senses pollen.
Bee’s that sense pollen release pheromones.
Other bee senses pheromones.
Bee’s that sense these pheromones find the pollen.

No need to insert a human/person-like reason behind the pheromones that were released, or call the receipt of pheromones the receipt of a communication, or call the move to find the pollen a decision.

We humans take time to name all of these things and reconnect them with logical reasoning, and communicate these logical reasonings and names to other reasoning creatures.

Animals skip all the reflection; in fact, they don’t skip it, it never arises (and may not have anything in which it could arise in the first place).

No, we are the only ones plagued with reason and communication.

I my be off-topic here, but I can’t seem to sustain any discussion that touches on the essence or existence of the “I” and “willing” without addressing them generally regardless of any more narrow or more focused aspect of the discussion. So I hope this tangent is somehow instructive.

I see willing and the thing willed (two separate things, one being an act the other being an object) as one thing, or one act. I see paradox as the only explanation. Where I see one thing, there are two things.

When we will, we create the will that wasn’t there before we willed. So when we refer to “my will” as if it was something there beforehand out of which some particular object was chosen, we are not speaking properly. We don’t have to wonder where our will came from; we don’t have to wonder why I want the thing that I want, as if maybe I am only determined and incapable of free-will. The “my” and the thing in “my will” are generated at one and the same moment.

When we are not willing (possibly just observing or watching tv), there is no will and no thing willed; they don’t exist though we are observing or laughing or falling asleep. I don’t have to choose to see something as funny and impulsively laugh at it. But my will can be created in that same instant and resist the laughter. We create the grounds for freedom by willing. It’s one motion.

So the brain and the objects of consciousness are one, in the act of “braining” or “thinking” or “willing.”

No dualistic gap that begs any questions in between a brain and a freely chosen object by a subject needs to be bridged.

We are in each instant determined and purely driven by the physics of things, AND, as humans, at times, we also reflect on this determinism in those same driven instants, and NOW, taking a new position in the reflection (of our own creation), still in that same instant, we can begin to demarcate “I” and “my will”, making the objects of those reflected descriptions (reflections of of those same driven and determined things that came before the reflection). It’s all what being human is, what humans do.

We reflect and either rejoin the deterministic flow or remain in reflection - and that builds the space where any freedom might begin to emerge.

I have no idea how this is, but I also don’t see brain science as the essential part of the discussion. We can summarize the drivers of the deterministic world as the “humors” or “biles” or “chemistry” or cutting edge modern brain/neuro-science. But all of the testing that explains the drivers and the deterministic (brain) functions walks you further and further away from where the will is born, which is only in the reflection of those other things, only during a particular act of “willing” does the object of study persist. A non-deterministic space of possibility where “I” and “will” are first capable of birth.

Something must be particular for there to be a possibility of “my free will” at all. This would quickly seem to be a particular brain. But there needs to also be something else - namely, a reflection of the brain on the brain (which is really a body, which is really a body in an environment, etc…). The free will is born in a reflection of the determined necessities of the brain.

But dualism needs to be resisted to retain the existence of free-will. Constantly resisted as determinism takes hold the moment one is no longer willing to resist.

We have to free ourselves from ourselves in order to first become ourselves and not only be determined. We remain determined in each moment we might be free. And recognize that in the same instant we are free, it is a freedom that can only be used to re-participate with the deterministic necessities.

All of this, just to be a human.

The brain with its self-consciousness - and these are two subjects - at the same time are one subject of the subject is “my free will” - a wholistic view is necessary, with the physicalist aspects being less interesting; these are each the whole, and each a part of the same whole.

We are a contradiction. Saying “I” contradicts myself, which is a “brain saying ‘I’”. We are paradox. We fall from this precarious position when we slip into dualistic explanations, or slip into nihilism (no “I” and “no free will”).

When I say “I am an illusion” I am not admitting that “I am an illusion to myself.”

When I say “I can’t be free”, I am freely consenting to saying so. (Unless we can show there is no such thing as a reflection).

We are better off admitting “I don’t know what ‘I’ is, though I know that ‘I’ is”, and “I don’t know why I will what I will, but I will it when I am willing it, nonetheless.”

But without addressing the above somewhat, I don’t know how to address the ability to shape our own character.

That principle exists because humans exist. Once humans no longer exist, no need for preferences. I am not sure why this is so hard. — schopenhauer1

But what is wrong with inflicting suffering? Why is it wrong to torture babies to death and make more babies to torture them?

You need an ethics to argue torturing babies is wrong. It’s not obvious. Otherwise, like an orca teaching its young, torturing babies to death is just another motion in space, like any other, neither good nor bad.

WE say it is bad to inflict suffering without consent. WE create this rule, this ethic. Now that it’s created, WE can choose to act on it. And the ANist can determine that to not-procreate is to act on this new rule we created. And what is the good of this act?? What is the good of the rule? In the end, what is the reason there were humans once but are no longer any humans? The reason would be because of the ethics we created. Not any other reason.

So the ethics itself, the principle itself, for the ANist, is the higher goal than some condition or state in the ethical human being.

We create a problem (inflicting suffering without consent) to create a solution (not procreating) for sake of….
…upholding the principle, NOT for sake of any person. All things people are, to the ANist, something that SHOULD NOT persist, should not have come to be.

So AN upholds ethics to defeat ethics. It is literally for the sake of nothing.

In that case, it is legitimate to ask Why be ethical at all?

Instead of killing off the human race, we could all choose to kill off ethics. We could fight our instinct towards compassion (fight the pangs that arise when suffering is inflicted on another) instead of fighting our instinct to procreate?

Why must our response to compassion be the creation of ethics? If the answer involves humans (an individual, a community, possible future humans…) than antinatalist ethics make no sense as its goal is “no more humans is a good.”

the possibility of all future ethical agents" is not an actual human, but a reified concept — schopenhauer1

And the concept of "no consent" and the concept of "inflicted suffering on another" and the concepts of "good" and "ethics" are reified concepts. Not actual humans. No difference.

Rather, the ethics is incumbent on humans that already exist to follow in regards to future ethical agents. — schopenhauer1

You can't discard my reference to "the possibility of future ethical agents" as a mere reified concept, and then say ethics is incumbent on current people "in regards to future ethical agents."

This is the problem with the logic. You need certain things be in place as premises and principals, in order to demonstrate a world where none of these premises or principals need exist.

prefer to keep "Humanity and civilization going" — schopenhauer1

You need human civilization to exist for any human preference to exist at all. The ANist is using a preference to base a conclusion that preferences should not exist. If preferences should not exist, why prefer not to inflict harm? Unless you uphold the principal over the person.

Rather, the ethic is, "Do not cause unnecessary harm". — schopenhauer1

There is more to ethics than principles. Ethical principles are calls to action, prescriptions for behavior impacting other ethical agents - they are guides for physical, actual behavior in a society. AN ethical behavior based on principals (do not cause harm; procreation causes harm without consent) is for the sake and goal of eliminating all ethical action by eliminating all ethical actors. On principle, the ANist doesn't want any creatures that would have or construct principals to exist at all. On principle, principles should not drive action. That makes no sense.

So I ask, why would we use ethical principles (don't inflict harm) to make the world better if that better world doesn't need or have any ethical principals in it (because no ethical agents)? Why would I think it is good to follow any ethical principal that had the goal of building a society that had no need or place for ethics?

Rather, the ethics is incumbent on humans that already exist to follow in regards to future ethical agents. — schopenhauer1

What drives the notion "ethics is incumbent"? Why would you say that? We choose our ethics just as we choose our actions according to our ethics. If choosing and choosing ethically are so good they are "incumbent", why would we destroy the presence of these goods by building a world that had no ethical agents in it? Choosing must therefore be bad.

If humans exist, ethics towards other agents exist. If humans don't exist, this ethic is no longer needed. No humans = no ethics. If there are humans, then the ethic (of not procreating) remains. — schopenhauer1

If humans exist, ethics is possible, but need not exist - we are the only creatures who construct ethics, but before we construct it, ethics does not exist. AN is constructing ethics to construct a world without humans, as if the ethics of "not inflicting harm" was more important than the human that constructed this ethic. And all with the outcome of world where no creature could reconstruct this ethic and recognize how good all of those humans who did not procreate were back when they were living, ethical agents.

We don't exist SO THAT ethics can persist, but rather ethics exists because humans exist. — schopenhauer1

I agree - we don’t exist for ethics.

But AN is the ethical system that places the ethics above the humans.

For the ANist, the ethical principal is a higher good than the agent, because the ANist is willing to destroy the possibility of all future ethical agents for sake of upholding its ethical principal.

But if ethics tells me ethics should not exist, why would I think I should be ethical?

I exist, then ethics exists. If the ethics exists because of me, but this ethics tells me I should not exist, then the ethics should not exist either. So what is “wrong” about inflicting suffering without consent again? I was wrong to exist then so is my ethics wrong to exist. So why do a fabricate this whole ethical dilemma? Why not let the Forrest fire burn, the earthquake crumble, the storm drown, and the human procreate? Why not, if our ethics is nothing and for nothing?

The AN position upholds ethics above the ethical agent, in order to eliminate the agent and so eliminate the ethics.

That is what makes no sense to me.

There is nothing good about being ethical in a world that should not have ethics in it because it should not have humans in it.

Ethical agency doens't seem to me to make sense without a community. In other words, if, say, 'I act in order to bring the good to myself and to others', then I cannot 'ignore' the presently existent human beings and the human community in general. — boundless

I agree with that. Ethics is born, or created, in between, or out of, two or more people.

To me, the outcome doesn't matter. That is to say, we don't have a duty towards the outcome of "preserving humanity". Humanity isn't a subject for ethical concern. — schopenhauer1

In my view, saying “ethics” is to call up a community, such as “humanity.” So it doesn’t make sense (to me) to talk about AN without talking about both humanity and the individual; otherwise we aren’t doing ethics (or even psychology).

Humanity can be limited to all of those humans alive now, but this humanity is where any ethic is inflicted upon the universe. This ethics only emerges among humans (at least emerges as a topic of discussion only humans currently call “ethics”).

We, here on this thread, are building an ethical discussion. This is where ethics lives. Both within each individual as you read, and among us now exchanging these words of ethical wisdom.

Ethics itself, like this thread, is particular to humans, and out of this, the ANist shows that consent and suffering are paramount considerations, and out of these that we (humanity as each individual) must not procreate.

I still find AN difficult to fully grasp in its use of ethical reasoning to promote a world bereft of ethical reasoning, a world bereft of human procreation (humans being the creatures who use “ethical reasoning” as a thing).

I agree we are broken. I agree suffering is unavoidable and ubiquitous. And I agree compasssion is essential to ethics, a good, a virtue to be cultivated. And I agree it is “good” not to inflict suffering without consent. But I don’t see anything reasonable about eliminating the infliction of suffering by eliminating the ethics and compassion (along with the human species) that show us suffering is something to be compassionate about in the first place. It makes ethics itself potentially unethical, or non-sensical. It is either suicidal or nihilistic, not simply “good” anymore as “good” is no longer good.

When we end human procreation, we end the existence of compassion in the same universe that led us to be “ethical” and not procreate in the first place.

It’s like this: we all get together write a rule down and all sign it with full consent and the rule is “all of those who make rules must not procreate.” There need be no “good” in the rule or “reason” why the rule is written, because all “good” and “reason” will cease to provide account of anything at all where all those who make rules do not procreate.

because the world is perfectly ethical) — AmadeusD

Don’t you mean because the world is perfectly non-ethical?

the ultimate ethical goal of never needing ethics — AmadeusD

Therefore, antinatalism leads to the ultimate ethical goal of never needing ethics. — AmadeusD

Which is another way AN harms itself as a reasonable ethical system.

If the goal of ethics is to eliminate ethics, we could just ignore any pangs of morality now instead. Like ignoring pangs of procreation when trying to be an ethical AN.

If It’s all pang manipulation, why base the manipulations on any ethics, let alone an ethics that seeks to undo its application anywhere?

Sure, pain and suffering suck and sex feels good and so does a cheeseburger when you are hungry, but using scales of ethics and motality to help decide one’s way forward for sake of eliminating ethics is a bit like using math to show how numbers can’t exist (or in this case shouldn’t exist).

Suppose you somehow became convinced that Christianity is false. — Art48

I’m Catholic. Go to church every Sunday because the Church tells me to. Believe the history in the New Testament (because of the ethics in the whole Bible). Etc., etc. Am inspired almost every Mass to do something better.

But in my down time (most of the time) I use reason and my own wits to get through the day. I have little use for God in philosophical discussion for instance, or when crossing a busy street.

At one time I was convinced that the whole Catholic thing was another story, like so many others.

I became an atheist.

If Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead and didn’t promise eternal life, why would I (or anyone) bother to make some new delusion? Or look for some less interested form of “God” than a man who would die on a cross for me, to show me He is God and pave a way to eternity? With all of that out the window, what do we need any gods for anyway?

But then the question is, what if Reason itself was false, would you throw away all of your thinking and your languages and definitions and meanings (except for those meanings that were useful to cross the street safely, or as safely as possible I should say)?

If I realized that everything I realized was false, including this sentence, I wouldn’t do philosophy anymore either.

It's hard to know how ideas are constructed. — Jack Cummins

This is a major question of mine.

I am fascinated by the irony that right now, I am using ideas (such as "mind-dependent," "objective," "idealism", "dualism"...) to seek out what an idea is.

What materials am I manipulating right now as I ask this question? I have no idea, yet I have the idea that I have no idea.

Possible explanations have ranged from eternal platonic forms, to illusory emergent functions of language. No explanations are the least bit satisfactory.

When discussing ideas, I don't see how to avoid an immaterial type substance (forget dualism for a minute - I just needed another word for material so I didn't have to say "an immaterial type of material" but that is what I meant). An idea, whatever it is, wherever it sits in the universe, cannot, by definition, have a body (at least not a material one). If I teach you what my idea of a triangle is, and you take away the idea of a triangle and teach it to some other mind, the idea may never have resided apart from a mind (unlike a platonic form), but it can't be said that my triangle is any different than yours. Two ideas if they are two ideas of a triangle, are really one and the same idea - they must be identical (or you would not have the idea). This is physically impossible.

But at the same time, when discussing anything, I don't see how to avoid a material type substance. What does "exist" mean anymore if we say an idea exists without a body?

Lodging all of this discussion into brain functions, language functions, epiphenomena, compatibilist discussions does me absolutely no good, because they eliminate the immateriality aspects - it just never accounts for the objectivity of the fact that everywhere, every time, regardless of anything, if there is a triangle, there are three sides, identical always. A materialist explanation never accounts for the idea itself and we are left where we start - what just happened when I used an idea to make something happen? We have to leave the idea intact to finish any satisfactory explanation, because the explanation itself is an idea. Otherwise, we have this idea that ideas don't exist, and the irony smacks us in the metaphorical (not material) face.

Surreal is a good word for the title.

"Nothing to see here. Move along..."

It materializes out of thin air...
— Fire Ologist

Do you really think so? I don't. — Metaphysician Undercover

Saying it materializes out of thin air is shorthand for - who the hell knows yet.

Where precisely is the thin line between the identity we call a hurricane and the identity we call high pressure sunny - tough to tell, ever-shifting, ever coming to be and fading - but it materializes nonetheless.