No one telling you what to do. — Wheatley

Very good. Now how about no one asking you what to do, but doing it to you anyways, to you?

So the problem you're going to run into in all of this is people will always object to the objective component. They will just ask for a regress "Why"? For example, it would seem "objectively" that a "Happy Slave" is an injustice. However, the slave "thinks" they are happy. So how can you say he's "wrong"? You see? They will just say a good life is always subjective.

Come to this thread then :D. Forcing someone into the game's agenda...I would never impose though.. so only view if you want.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/599957

What information where you referring to? I didn't see a link.

@Down The Rabbit Hole @TheSoundConspirator
So I'm trying to develop the idea of more than just the "collateral damage" of the minority who view it as such. Rather I am trying to show how reality is limited in enough ways that it really is a "limited" game.

Forced Situations of Real:
-Technology/ science follows only certain principles. We cannot just create things from fiat. Rather, it is a truism that science must follow these principles that we are bound to.

-Survival requires cooperative effort. Economic activity requires interactions we may not want to do if we had the option not to do it.

-Forced power relations. With that economic activity, you need people who tell others what to do and when to do it and make sure the "ship is running". This creates power hierarchies and dynamics. Ones we would not want to deal with if there was another choice. This happens anywhere from anarcho-communes to business orgs.. It's just how things work (not to say that it is good though).

-Throwness of already existing systems from historical contingency. Our political/economic/social structures may not be what we would want it to be otherwise, but we deal with them because one cannot easily start anew.

Again, if these Forced Situations of the Real are inescapable (mostly), how would putting more people knowingly in these structures NOT a political agenda?

Structures of Control:
- Personal habits of shame, guilt, anxiety are instilled to internally control behavior.
-External cajoling, shaming from peers (social psychology) to get people to do what they wouldn't want otherwise.
-Firings, threats of excommunication and becoming an outcast from the system
-jobs not easy to get, lag time for employment (labor markets aren't perfect representations of what we want, just what is available).
-Not all jobs are known or advertised (again non-perfect labor markets)

Post-Modernism Has Wrong Assumptions, Rather:
-One cannot escape these situations of "the real" and "throwness"
-There are NOT infinite amounts of options
-One must accept the real and embrace it or "leave the game"

The things are also done by the group, that is framing our perception and capacity to take desicions. We are actually getting like a fungus. That is thinking by its own. The cells aren't taking the led by their own beyond their perception of their immediate surrounding and necessities, but the fungus is leading the group by its own besides it doesn't have brain. — Santiago

I think you might be taking that metaphor too literally. To the extent that we are using "group think" I think you are correct. We often nag each other and pressure each other into decisions based on cultural norms. Raising a baby becomes a signal and signifier. It becomes a totem. It becomes simply a way to pass the time for 20 years or so for many people. Its an accident that people rationalize (or have no way of getting rid of in some areas). However, what is the case is it is up to the human agent and they can make a choice not to create a new person, and the prevent intendent consequence of doing so for that person. In other words, it's not inevitable.

I think, that's an interesting comparison. However in our lives the frame, network, or game is made by us, once we take into consideration the external conditionals are delimiting our own social frame development. Besides the frame or called by you game, seems to be developing by its own itself. We seems to be just cells and nobody has a real grip or influence over it. The "bugg" drives the things by its own. — Santiago

Not sure about this. People make the decision. Things aren't brought into existence by simply "external forced" doing it on their own.

Well, that would be a fair point considering the fact that initially they did not have to nor want to enter this game of obstacles and unnecessary challenges. But would it particularly matter later? Now, the paternalistic political assumption that people need to overcome obstacles for no other reason than to see it happen is quite an interesting perspective. And I must say that those assumptions are albeit futile but they have been built into the core of our society.
But that begs a question that needs to be addressed before further discussion, what are the arbitrary rules of the society and who gets to decide just and unjust?
I might consider Socrates to be a wise man with much to contribute but the people of Athens disagreed and considered his intellectual tidbits to be unjust and venomous. What precisely is justified in the world? The world is a purely subjective with multiple contradictory perspectives and that is something that needs to be taken into account in this discussion. — TheSoundConspirator

There could be an argument made that not procreating is the most just because there could never be something enacted upon someone else unnecessarily and/or harmful or paternalistic. When someone is born all these things will befall that person. Thus the logic always tends to the "not procreate" as the collateral damage/unnecessary damage is never put forth. A political agenda on someone else's behalf is NOT happening, where it would be if one did go ahead and enacted it.

I'll sum this up this way:
Making someone go through an obstacle course of varying degrees of harm is not good. Even if post-facto, people might go along with it because it's all they know, or would say, they "like" or "don't mind" it, this political agenda of making people have to play a game is wrong due to the harms that could have been avoided.

With this idea comes the fact that the universe is not being "edified" by people playing a game. In other words, I can imagine a response being that, playing games is just intrinsically good and MUST happen. The universe would be worse without it. That is ridiculous. The rings of Saturn, the stars in Alpha Centuri and the rest don't give a damn about people playing the game or not playing the game. Nothing loses out on anything.

Also keep in mind that no person is in non-existence prior to birth crying about not playing the game. What matters is the game was not enacted for someone else, with it's intendant harms.

With all of this comes the more basic notion that there seems to be something that is not using people by not creating them and paternalistically making them play a game. In the grand scheme, there is no "good for someone" or "not good for someone", when considering the procreation decision, simply creating someone who will be affected (and harmed) and not creating that. The "not creating someone who will be affected (and harmed) is not using people in any fashion. It is more deontologically sound.

I'm stuck with one argument - that the lives of suffering (even 3% of the population is hundreds of millions) are not a reasonable sacrifice for everything else life has to offer. I guess this argument is just part of your collection? — Down The Rabbit Hole

I could take the easy route and say, that this is correct that using any person for a majority is wrong.. Especially when it comes to harming that person. While this is true, the more difficult case though that I am laying out is enacting any agenda that makes someone play a game is using them.. Especially if that game has known and contingent harms that cannot be avoided, are unnecessary for them to play in the first place, and practically inescapable (suicide is really not the same as not playing in the first place).

Yes. — NOS4A2

And this is the basis of the asymmetry.

Preventing the planting of a bomb is good. But you’d be saving no one if those potential victims were never born. — NOS4A2

Right, but there is some way that this state of affairs is good or better than the other.

Interesting sci-fi spin on it. However, let me bring it back to the main point.. What is it about forcing people to play a game, with various obstacles to overcome, that seems wrong. KEEP IN MIND though, I am not talking about games which strengthen oneself in the present to bring about a better future state (like vaccines, schooling, self defense, etc.).. But rather, in this case, one doesn't have to play the game in the first place. There was no person beforehand to need to have a better future state. This would purely be creating someone in order that they experience the obstacle course. Independently of whether the player (new person) might eventually identify with the obstacles and report that they "like the game", something seems off here. Maybe you can help me point out the "wrong" in creating unnecessary obstacles for others (independent of their post-facto reports of liking the game). I am thinking there is something wrong with the paternalistic political assumption that people need to overcome obstacles for no reason other than they want to see it happen.

@Down The Rabbit Hole What do you think? What is it that seems to be unjust here that I am not quite verbalizing other than "paternalistic unnecessary harm".. Is there something else that can describe this unnecessary creation of the obstacle course for another, and deeming it "good" because YOU want to see this take place for another person? It starts to become a political decision. You want to see an agenda enacted of game playing.. This isn't innocently defending yourself by saying, "Oh well, we need to provide obstacles to prevent even greater obstacles".. This is creating all obstacles in the first place.

@Bitter Crank Maybe you can bring to bear some of your down-to-earth perspective on this.

Recall also Marx’s well known and often quoted reference to a higher form of society in which labor has become not only a means of life but also the highest want in life. — Noam Chomsky, Government in the Future

So much of this OP was about how procreation is unnecessarily creating people that will be forced to work. The unnecessary part here is that, prior to birth no "one" needs to do anything, but after being born, almost everyone has to be a part of the economic system in some way (usually as a laborer/worker). Why create more little laborers? Well your quote from Chomsky (and ultimately Marx) is a perfect example of how I think procreation becomes its own self-creating political agenda. Work becomes this paternalistic political goal that "must" be foisted on the next generation. The parent has an assumption that work is edifying and someone MUST be born to be edified by this. It is just intrinsically "self-fulfilling" according to this conception. However, I am turning this notion on its head. Perhaps it is paternalistic and wrong to foist upon another person the need to labor, lest that new being born die. It is unnecessary and wrong to cause others to exist to then have to labor (run through an obstacle course of the economic system). Thus unnecessarily creating obstacles for others (like in the definite case of procreation) is wrong.

And an example demonstrating violating the rights of the not yet existent is planting a bomb that will kill a future generation (that hasn't been born yet), but their right to life (when they have been born) etc will have been violated? — Down The Rabbit Hole

Right, there is a way that preventing the planting of a bomb that would hurt a future person(s) is "good", even if there was no person alive to be aware that there was a prevention of this terrible thing that could have affected them.

Yes it does, but someone just doesn't get to a lava pit by itself. Someone had to arrange that before hand.. Let's say the intent was there, and you had the ability to stop them from doing so. You actually changed the arrangement so that it led to a hospital. Did you actually affect anyone? Surely your logic would say you did nothing for no one, right?

Well yes it is immoral to birth your baby into a lava pit. — NOS4A2

Why should that matter? According to your logic, if the person didn't exist at time X, then it doesn't matter the outcome at time Y?

The only way a parent might stop the efforts of your genetic material is to intervene, or otherwise “force” it to stop without any consideration of the consent of those involved, no? — NOS4A2

None of this is relevant. The agency is the parents, not proto-genetic material. What "caused" this sequence of events to take place. It is like the trigger.

Anyways, it makes sense to me that “moral actions that affect [a person] make no difference as long as the person doesn't exist at time X” simply because there is no person to affect with the moral action. — NOS4A2

Would circumstances change if the birth was in clearly bad circumstances or situations? The baby was absolutely going to born into a lava pit and consumed by the lava, let's say. This isn't relevant, right? Cause there was no person at point X prior. But that makes no sense.

t becomes difficult to follow when these thought experiments always treat nothings as somethings, potential people as people, possible scenarios as extant ones. Would your evil villain be guilty of forcing someone into a game if there was no man to nab from the couch? if there was no one to force? Conversely, are the parents guilty of not seeking consent when there is no one to seek consent from? I don’t see how they can. — NOS4A2

Right, so when there can be no consent, who is being harmed by not having the child? Yet someone would (at the least be) forced by having them.

There is no person to force. — NOS4A2

When someone is born, this is the force. No "one" needs to be there prior. Imagine if the situation was someone put in extremely dire circumstances. Just because at time X they didn't exist, doesn't mean it is okay to then put them in situation Y.

Looking at it, there is no act in conception, pregnancy and birth that should have required our consent, whereas in your evil demon scenario there is. — NOS4A2

It just makes no sense that moral actions that affect people make no difference as long as the person doesn't exist at time X. Again, makes no sense.

Your genetic material travelled, fertilized, and formed by its own efforts. You threw yourself in the game. — NOS4A2

Not by itself. Now you are debating a weird version of causation. Someone presses a trigger and it was the combustion that did the work.

I was showing the lack of freedom in the unborn. As I have already acknowledged, the unborn are being forced into existence, but in the alternative the unborn are being forced not to exist. In the former, the unborn would end up with more freedom overall. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I don't think this is looking at it accurately. The alternative is NOT being forced to not exist, as in that scenario there is no "one" to not exist. In fact, there is no one "missing out" on the game by not existing. This goes back to that asymmetry. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with "missed game" to anyone who doesn't exist. What "force" or "bad" is happening to anyone? What is a factual state of affairs, is no person will be forced, and that is where the issue lies.

But why would putting someone into an inescapable game because YOU deem it to be a good game, just? How is this not a violation somewhere? Put someone in a game and if they want to opt out, they can commit suicide. Something seems off. Call it "paternalistic reasoning that violates dignity of new player". Anything assuming that a player MUST play an inescapable game, and does not put harm prevention above any other consideration, would be using that person. Why MUST someone be born because YOU deem life X, Y, Z? Mind you that question isn't asking what X, Y, Z is but how any reason can actually be legitimate.. I like something therefore, someone else SHOULD play the game too.

One could argue that being "forced" to do this by another entity or creature is injustice, but there is no justification as to why it truly is. — TheSoundConspirator

I am beginning to think paternalistic "thinking this is good for someone else" may be an unjust reason. One's own sense of what is "right for another person" overlooks the entity that would be created's dignity. In the procreation scenario, the only thing that doesn't seem to be overlooking the dignity of the person playing the game, is thinking in terms of prevention of harms. One is not overlooking dignity by preventing all future harm for that person.. One is violating dignity once putting them into an inescapable game. Putting anyone in an inescapable game, because you think it is good, is a violation of sorts.

This is their perverted idea of game! — Alkis Piskas

Can't procreating another person into the world, be considered this? The injustice happens once born. straight away, as a game was forced. Suicide is the only option out, which is also cruel. Best not start it for anyone.

I wonder, is @Inyenzi still around? We've had really good discussions on these matters.

Why not. I'm glad I was procreated! I — Ozymandy

Ergo, another player should feel the same? Why is your happiness tied to someone else playing the game as well? Why are you the arbiter of what someone else should play?

We can play this game. I think it is evident that there is no single capitalist society which exists in the world. Same with communism. As stated by Smith and Marx and later developed by different figures, such societies could not exist.

There are examples of real democracies like the Kibbutz in Israel, or the Spanish Civil War in which people decided to work affairs out for themselves, free of "Gods and masters". Orwell speaks about this insightfully in Homage to Catalonia.

But this would be a diversion from the main point, I suspect. — Manuel

It's not necessarily a diversion. My point is survival and the limitations of being humans in a world, make it a non-starter that one can change the game. Transhumanism, or whatever utopia, just doesn't seem to come about any time soon, if at all.

But you think it's a curse. I don't think people think like this and I don't think they're deluded. You can say life is suffering. Sure. You can say life is a miracle. Yes as well. It's not a zero sum game. — Manuel

But you didn't answer the question at hand which was about what you liking the game has to do with bringing more people into the game. Can't we be creative enough not to assume what others should want in such a drastic way?

Try writing one post focusing on the good things in life, unironically. It would be interesting to see. Cause I get the impression you would not be able to. Prove me wrong. — Manuel

I have before discussed what might be deemed as "intrinsic goods".

If they're not interested...let them be. — Ozymandy

So I'm talking about procreation.. Procreation brings people which have to go through obstacles.. Ergo, procreation leads to creating in a fashion "an obstacle course" for other people. Why should we procreate people who will have to go through the obstacle course?

I like competition, fights, polemics. — Ozymandy

Why should others go through obstacles because you think it's good (at the time you made the decision for that person at least). It's one thing to bring obstacles upon yourself, quite another to decide that you want to birth more people to experience obstacles.

We need obstacles. — Ozymandy

Why? This seems paternalistic.

The whole life is a kind of obstacle course, forced on us from the moment of conception and even way back to the big bang. A funny game God created. — Ozymandy

And yet we keep adding more contestants.

A more productive way to proceed would not be condemn, full stop, those who "force" you to play, but to try to involve yourself in situations in which solutions can be brought to the fore which alleviates the suffering of those alive, which is what matters. — Manuel

I don't disagree with this, but no one has found a better way. The closest thing in a kind of scale that was massive were communist revolutions which just led to more suffering. I just think Chernobyl, Stalin, Mao, and the rest. The game is the game. One cannot escape the game.

Of course, these always leave out or marginalize (quite severely) pleasure, joy, challenge, discovery, laughter, fun, amazement, love, music and everything that's good in life. — Manuel

And collateral damage? Why does "missed happiness" matter (if no one exists to miss it)? What are people creating more people for? If you are alive.. Be HAPPY without forcing others into the game. Why must YOUR HAPPINESS be contingent on ANOTHER PLAYER?

Again, I have sympathies for existential pessimism and even pointlessness, but not AN. These AN arguments aren't convincing for a reason: they're not true for most people. — Manuel

Yet, if people are individuals and are not some Borg (group-mind), why should your happiness be contingent on someone else playing the game? Are we not creative enough not to involve another person having to play the game?

Simply what the question itself says: Any situation in which people are forced --i.e. do something against their will-- (by whatever power) to play a game.
Life is generally considered as one of them, although there’s is a widespread belief that we exist as spiritual beings and every once and then we want to play the "game of life" as a change, challenge or whatever. (I am not a proponent because I don't have a proof of that for myself.)
School attendance, serve as a classic example of — Alkis Piskas

I have never thought of a "happy slave", — Alkis Piskas

uch a game. In fact, any situation in which we are forced to obey or accept it. Including paying taxes! :smile:

Except all these examples happen when we are already born. Once born, some harm might be needed to ameliorate a greater harm. Birth has no people to ameliorate.. It would be in this case, completely unnecessary to create the harm for that person.

The game provides for obstacles, which consist of all the things that can act against this effort. There can't a game without freedoms and obstacles (and a goal, of course). Now, if the freedoms are too many and/or the obstacles too little, the game would be boringly easy. On the other hand, if there were too little freedoms and/or too many obstacles, the game would be boringly difficult. — Alkis Piskas

But why should people play a game?

It's a philosophical idea that what if people were severely limited but people didn't realize it, and yet were still happy.. Plato's Cave might be another example of this.

I'll go with a dictionary definition: "the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants". I don't think this is abundant in the unborn. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Again, why is not being around at time X, but being affected at time Y, not count as a force? Any number of things can be justified with this notion.

I really do think this demonstrates, in the case of people with lives of suffering, the weakness of freedom as a moral principle. It would be better for these people if they were never born despite all of the freedoms they have gained by being born. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Interesting. Yet this seems at odds with how we think of autonomous agents as somehow valuable. I'm proposing we may be closer to autonomous, our options are really not as many as we might think.

It just doesn't feel wrong to enslave someone and make them happy. It could be my consequentialist bias, but khaled seems to agree. — Down The Rabbit Hole

And others might disagree. Paternalism seems an odd ethical stance. One MUST exist.

I'll end on agreement though - suicide is a torturous experience for the person committing it, and all of their loved ones left behind. It can often cause more pain and suffering than the marginally bad life being ended, and it is definitely not an excuse in any way for bringing people into existence that have bad lives. — Down The Rabbit Hole

So is it only about amount of pain and pleasure for you? Is not the collateral damage something more than a statistic? It's easy to discount it when one is just philosophizing and abstracting.

I prefer the idea that “forcing” is when you attempt to subvert and substitute another’s will with your own. But with birth and child rearing you are creating and nurturing a will. — NOS4A2

Yet there was no choice for the person born. Why is someone not being around at X time, mean you can do something that affects them at Y time (affectively substituting another's will with your own, but with time displacement as to when the person is affected).

In fact, life offers everything. It is only you that limits it. — NOS4A2

Except it isn't. Life is not all possibilities, but a pretty known set of procedures that one needs to do in the first place (systemic) and in which others will have the inclination and capacity to be better at (contingent).

I would like to understand, what in your opinion, the alternative is?

To me, the game of life is full of choice. Yes, there are certain rules to it but I fail to understand how nonexistence is supposed to be an alternative that offers any kind of freedom. Either you exist, or you don't. How are you supposed to choose whether you want to partake if you do not exist? In this way too, it's a lot fairer to be born first and still have the choice to opt out, as to never having a choice at all. — Hermeticus

The game was not chosen, period. The limits are playing the economic/survival game, lest you hack it in the wilderness, go homeless, or kill yourself. There seems to be something cruel in these alternatives. Like it or die. Most like it, so die.

And yes, life does have to sustain itself. From a human point of view, we who have engaged ourselves in such a complex system of ethics and morals - that we may fill whole online forums with them - may view some of these aspects of life as cruel, as painful, as suffering. But if you zoom out a little from the egocentric human perspective that we're stuck with and view the bigger picture, it's all perfectly fair. It's so fair that even if we ruin this planet and destroy ourselves, life will strive and allow everyone who lives to play the game. — Hermeticus

I just don't have any other perspective than human. Even me thinking as if I am Mother Earth, is just me thinking as if I am Mother Earth.

Ultimately, what solution does not being born give? An absence of life.
What do we call an absence of life? Death.
What is the root of all suffering? Death. It's either "I can't live like this." or "I will die from this."
So in conclusion, the idea of not being born serves the very poison it's trying to cure. — Hermeticus

Not being born is not death. It's not even the same as being born and then dying. It's never being at all.

I would argue that work activates people. The early humans got mentally and physically active because of doing what was needed in nature. — denverteachers

Why should this be decided for on someone else's behalf, especially if no one had to work in the first place (because they weren't born)? Why cause another person to deal with something in the first place? You can't say because it solves another problem for that person if they don't exit yet.

This then answers the question of freedom as well: If the only choices are to play or not to play, then with the ability to commit suicide, you have all the freedom in the world. — Hermeticus

So I think Hermeticus' quote here kind of sums up everyone else's response too give or take. How are we defining freedom?

Y'all's take: As long as there are sufficient choices in life (for surviving, entertaining, relationships with others, and even killing yourself) that is freedom.

Another take: Even if there seems to be choices (for surviving, entertaining, relationships with others, and even killing yourself), there really isn't. It's either follow the game (obstacle course with some choices there), homelessness, hack in the wilderness, or die. The option for suicide, homelessness, or dying in the wilderness, doesn't make the forced game any more fair or right to make people play. We are not "panning out" far enough to see the limited choice of the game of life.

So a takeaway here, there is something about the forced game, similar to the "happy slave" that is not right, or suspect. I am starting to think it has something to do with a paternalistic, "But this is good for you".. The forced game of limited options (especially never having the option not to play) has the paternalistic air that this game needs to be played by someone else.. It's good for them.. But why is the evaluation correct for someone else? There seems to be an implicit political agenda of the game that needs to be played, by more players. Majority opinion, like the happy slave, doesn't really answer this, so be creative. Also, there is still something not quite right about "suicide" being a solution for the collateral damage of those who don't agree with the game's premises.

Your point argues against you. — apokrisis

Ah yes, reading from the book of Apo as to what is bugger and what is not.

Don’t forget the uncomfortable shoes. The final outrage. — apokrisis

Granted, the point was to show annoyance at mere trivialities let alone things like homelessness, drug addictions, disease, disaster, death, non-success at work, and all the rest. You want to design life as an inevitable happy time, but it isn't, never was, never will. Not everyone will have the luxuries or care to be blissfully feeling nothing but pure enlightenment reading about the the triadic Peircean process philosophy.

Yes, don't even mention the unbearable burden of having to make a choice on shoe colour as well. Those bastard shoe manufacturers and their 30 colourways on the sneaker you wanted to buy. — apokrisis

Right, the point was to give you a pedestrian example (feet get it..:D). Anyways, you predictably wanted to focus on its triviality, but my point is even trivialities are slightly annoying.. Shall we go into heavier shit that happens in life? We adapt, sure, but we can evaluate and do all the time.. It isn't just nature "happening to us" it's very much us having to process and deal with situations all the time, slight, moderate, or severe. Someone dying of a horrible disease doesn't need to be used here to prove that point. The question remains, why should we put more people into this game? Yes there are choices, but they are limited. We can think of more ideal circumstances, but that is not the reality. We play a game. There is a paternalism underlying all of it. There is also a political agenda. apokrisis thinks the game must be played, so people must play it right? People just got to stop their bitching and/or accept the (non-inevitable) outcome that one must play the game.. one MUST play the game, because see circular argument here.. apokrisis says it MUST be so. That's not an excuse, and you know it. A game is forced, you haven't addressed this, only tried to red herring or ad hom about me complaining. Answer the three questions perhaps in the OP and then I'll see if you are really engaged with what I'm saying.

just because people think they have a good life doesn't mean they actually do. — darthbarracuda

Yes I agree.. I am running into this question about what constitutes "objective harm" so the flipside.. You are trying to figure out (and not getting an answer) "objective happiness/good life".

Just curious, do you think "objective harm" also runs into this problem, since everyone's notion is different in slight ways?

So being devil's advocate again.. what would make the person's life not a good life even if their experiences were from a machine? What makes anything except subjective point of view matter? Thus, "Life is good" from the experience machine just means for that person, "Life is good". Again being REAL devil's advocate here.

But when there is a long history of disagreement over something - with lots of different viewpoints that often contradict each other, so that it is not at all apparent as to what it is we are even disagreeing about, or that it is even within our means to know anything about this thing that is being argued about - that is when the uncertainty becomes relevant.

I don't think there has ever been a single coherent idea of what a good life is. There are partial representations of a good life - pleasure, virtue, accomplishment, etc - but there has never been and there never will be a complete idea of what a good life is. My view here is that, because we cannot ever know what the good life is, we cannot ever have it. — darthbarracuda

Won't most people equate the "good life" with them "liking life"? Thus if they "like life" they are living the "good life". I guess the question becomes, "Does the threshold for having children need to be that they have some certain definition of the 'good life' or simply that they subjectively think the are living a "good life"?

If you are perpetually moaning about finding yourself in a world "not of your making", you don't really get what being "a self" is all about at a deep metaphysical level. — apokrisis

Even if that metaphysical level were true, at my epistemological engagement with the world, I can evaluate the situation as negative. A really pedestrian example: "These new shoes feel weird.. I didn't think that was the case when I tried them on.. I can't take them back.. That was a bad choice.. I can live with these uncomfortable shoes.. drive back and try to get them returned.. etc." I mean really really boring example of just unpleasantness, choices galore.. At every decision there is an annoying outcome. One might lament that one should try shoes on better next time.. One can focus on that, but that doesn't change the uncomfortable shoes right now.. Anyways, there's always places to moan and evaluate, even if one can calibrate for a better decision next time. Yes the world is dynamic and iterative... doesn't mean one isn't annoyed, harmed, pained, suffering, etc.. The main point is we know of more ideal situations, even if they are not the current reality (whether of our own doing, nature's causation, social realities, or anything other cause). Our degrees of limitations are more limited than we think if we zoom out just a bit.. We are in a game.