Is the balance in existence really so skewed towards suffering as Schopenhauer claims? Are the good things in life really as fleeting and inconsequential as he presents them? Could S. be importing his own personal bias and presenting it as objective truth?

Even if there is a bias, could there still be value to Schopenhauer's pessimism, for example a pedagogical one? Could his work be an exercise in philosophical education? What kind of education would this be?

Schopenhauer claims that the capacity for reflective thought amplifies our suffering as compared with the other animals. He also says that suffering originates in the passage of time. Is there some important connection between time and thinking here that links them both to the reality of suffering? — aldreams

"Is morally irrelevant if nobody actually benefits"? What does that mean? — khaled

The word game here is where you dismiss logic as a word game. The rest of your post just repeats the same that has been previously demonstrated to be false. — Benkei

I really can't see how any of that actually meets the charge of neo-liberalism. It seems completely unrelated. Hyper-individualistic notions like "why should I suffer any inconvenience for the sake of others" are toxic. Your philosophy boils down to the principle that we cannot expect anything, even the slightest inconvenience, from any individual, for the benefit of their community. I've simply no time for that kind of bullshit. — Isaac

benefitting who? If that decision doesn't benefit anyone, it's not a moral choice. — Benkei

So when the decision not procreate is made, there's no future person who you saved from any harm. This is simply incoherent — Benkei

straw man as usual. Nothing has no properties, so no potentiality either but I'm perfectly capable of entertaining if this then that's. — Benkei

No, you stupid cunt, there's no such thing as a non-existent future person. — Benkei

You try to dismiss things like potentialities, conditionals, and counterfactuals like they don't exist, but they do. — schopenhauer1

Until you can explain how nothing cannot suffer, we're done. What you call absurdity is logical rigor, but because it doesn't answer your intuitions you dismiss it.

Yes, you have to exist to not suffer or suffer, because it's something people do. — Benkei

The sticking point, and the point at which I'm afraid I have, and will, lose my civility, is this neo-liberal bullshit about individual harms being the only matter in moral decisions. I'm afraid I just find that kind of view toxic and can't just discuss it as if it were a reasonable option. We're social creatures, we don't just think for ourselves. Even a six month old child shows degrees of empathy and concern for others, it's deeply ingrained in our core being. It matters. I mean, how many great stories have been about people caring about their own suffering and screw everyone else? — Isaac

See my response to Antinatalist. Life is not analogous to being trapped in a game. Being trapped entails that there are other options you'd prefer but cannot obtain (the trap prevents them. If a trap left all options open to you that you might desire, it's not a trap, by definition. There are no states one could prefer other than states within life because when not alive one cannot prefer anything. People who do not like their current state of affairs want that state of affairs to change to some other state of affairs. Existence is a prerequisite for experiencing any states of affairs. — Isaac

In other words, "suffering" is a state, which presupposes the existence of living people. — Benkei

Nothing absurd about if you stop replacing meaningful terms with meaningless ones. There's no presupposition between X and second X, so of course, THAT results in an absurdity. But only because it's an obvious straw man. — Benkei

Oh yes, let's return to where you never proved living causes suffering (not a sufficient cause) and just kept repeating "but you have to live to suffer", which coincidentally reinforces my previous point that suffering presupposes living. Just like any property of a person really. God, this is so fucking tedious it isn't funny anymore. Just some idiots with a belief and forgetting about basic logic. — Benkei

as the consequence of not giving birth is absence of the good that would have been experienced if the unborn had been born. — Down The Rabbit Hole

This is just a rephrasing of "caused by" which I've thoroughly debunked ages ago. — Benkei

Not going again there. — Benkei

Losing presupposes playing, so if you want to avoid a loss, you need to start playing first. Anything else is just nonsense. — Benkei

Also note that the data for the Netherlands is a strong utilitarian argument to have as many babies as possible. — Benkei

What we are comparing then is a possibility of existence with other examples of possible lives lived and we find that possibility unacceptable. But this is fundamentally different from saying this "non-existent" child is better off never having been born because when we talk that way, it is neither a child nor a person nor capable of having any properties, because it is nothing.

It is then the following position of anti-natalism that I suggest has some measure of logical rigour to it:

that any possible persons, who will suffer more than is outweighed by the good they will experience, outnumber people who will suffer less than is outweighed by the good they will experience. Or in short form "unhappy persons outnumber happy persons". — Benkei

Why don't you run me through the 50 steps you went through in your head to go from "you can't attribute states to nothing" to "you're invoking some sort of soul"? That's some serious bullshit right there. — Benkei

This is metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. Nothing doesn't have properties or states. The ability for a thing to have a property presupposes that it exists. — Benkei

At no point was there any choice. There are no yet-to-be-born souls wishing someone would ask them. If people really truly don't want to be in the game any more, they can always opt out. For someone who really does not like the game, it would be nothing but a brief inconvenience. It would be ridiculous to argue that causing people minor inconvenience is immoral. The problem is that most people contemplating suicide do like the game, they just wish they could experience it without the pain they're feeling. — Isaac

I've just explained how it's not like suffering and you've ignored all the arguments there and repeated the assertion. The bad thing in your example is being smacked by the board - that's the harm - and that is in the future - a consequence. — Isaac

The reason why we're here is because the only way you could answer khaled's sleeping lifeguard example was to invoke a threshold of consequence above which we ought not act against someone's will. You can't revert now to arguments just about the harm principle, they've been lost already - life is mostly a good thing - most people enjoy it - having children creates more good than it causes harm, and if someone really truly doesn't like life, the way out is only a minor and passing inconvenience. The harm principle alone simply doesn't work with our common intuitions about harms. We cause people minor harms all the time for the greater good. — Isaac

We can argue over whether or not the absence of good should be defined as a downside to being unborn, but considering that that good would be experienced should they be born, to a consequentialist it wouldn't matter. — Down The Rabbit Hole

"It's evil to act on evil intentions" -- this seems to be the basic argument for AN here.
"To intend to procreate is to set a trap for another person. Setting a trap is evil. To procreate is evil." — baker

Agreed. And if the very situation itself was overall negative then we'd have a problem, but since it isn't we've no problem at all ... yet. — Isaac

This is just plain wrong though. — Isaac

You can't change the past. You're literally saying that a situation which occurred in the past changes once the kid is born in the future. — Isaac

That doesn't make sense. Autonomy only means anything when there is a will. The concept can't be applied to the pre-will possibility, you might as well apply it to a stone. Possibilities don't have wills. The act of conception is the act of creating a will, so it cannot possibly be judged against the autonomy of that will, nothing can will itself to be created nor will itself not to be, so there's no view on the matter to take into consideration (or unjustly not do so). — Isaac

I don't think "dignity" just covers autonomy of will, but a basic unfairness or injustice that might be more fundamental (you don't need a will involved at point A, let's say). — schopenhauer1

Most people don't think so, so just saying it is isn't going to be sufficient. You've said before that you can make your case from common intuitions. This isn't one. — Isaac

I can explain this better with your oft-used kidnapping example.

What's bad about kidnapping a person to play a game (even if you think the game is brilliant and they'll really enjoy it) is that you're treating them as if they didn't have a will of their own. Their own choices of their own free will have a value over and above how 'right' or 'wrong' those choices are (sometimes).

But we can't apply this to conception because there's no person to have a will, to possess their own choices, until after we've conceived them. A non-existent being doesn't have a will or make any choices of their own.

Once born they will have a will and choices of their own, but we're not doing anything to violate them by then. It's a one-off decision and it's made at a time when there's no will to violate by making it.

We're deciding whether to bring a will into existence, so we can't possibly be violating that will at the same time as deciding whether to create it. — Isaac

How was dignity violated at a future point? What is the dignity violating event that's happening at this future point? — Isaac

Yep I agree. I was asking when a decision was made that went against there will, not when one was made that would eventually affect them. There's nothing morally wrong with making decisions that will eventually effect people, we do it all the time. — Isaac

But conceiving a child does not cause, in future, a decision to be made against someone's will.

The best you can say is that a decision is made (to conceive a child) which might be against the will of that child if that child existed at the time and could express a preference). But since that contains a contingent which clearly is not the case, the situation it mitigates never arises.

This is what I mean by equivocating between harms and force. You can't use the 'will happen in future' argument that is associated with harms when talking about force because that is not something that will necessarily happen in future. The harm will happen in future, but the force won't. — Isaac

But conceiving a child does not cause, in future, a decision to be made against someone's will. — Isaac

We could agree to disagree, but you furthermore seem to want to establish some objectivity to your view. That it is a matter of fact that the game of life is over the threshold of acceptable impositions. That’s why I ask you to argue further to establish that. — khaled

Why? On the basis that both are “for a lifetime”? — khaled

I would say there are some things that are ok to force onto people for a lifetime because of the suffering doing so alleviates. Like taxes. — khaled

So “for a lifetime” doesn’t seem to be enough to unilaterally say that too much dignity is being violated. — khaled

Where there did you argue that having children meets the threshold of “too much dignity violation”? — khaled

Where do you get this? That’s the main point. You don’t have a real argument unless you can argue for this premise. — khaled

Yes, the calculus does have to be worked out because intuitively I can say the waking of the lifeguard doesn't meet it while kidnapping the the lifeguard for a lifetime does. Thus, the situation you provided does not necessarily violate it, as it doesn't meet the threshold. The violation happens only after the threshold is met. — schopenhauer1

No because I would add “a bunch of good things not occurring is bad”. A no for Benatar. — khaled

Don’t you also say that having a child already meets the threshold in every case? — khaled

But you argue for a binary position. Having kids is wrong. Period. — khaled

And you haven’t shown that the threshold is met in the case of birth. If that’s your intuition that’s fine, but it’s not a common one. — khaled

Absence of suffering is also only good when there is a person actually affected by this. Idk where you’re getting otherwise. — khaled

This comes from conflating the state with the personal opinion of someone. — khaled

Even if we accept these (which I still don’t), it doesn’t help his argument. You can’t get AN from this. — khaled

If you could save person A from untold suffering for 30 years by forcing person B to play League of Legends for 4 hours with toxic teammates that make him want to tear his hair out, would you do it? — khaled

I would at least find that permissible. Even though it meets the 3 criteria above. So it’s not like having all 3 guarantees that “violating dignity” wins out. — khaled

The essential in this case is what is good for the child. If we think, for example, not having child will cause despair for child´s potential parents, we then use child as a mean - as an instrument for something - not as something valuable in itself (Immanuel Kant).

I´m not Kantian, but I have to agree with his assertion of the principle that human beings should be treated as ends rather than as means. — Antinatalist

But having a child or not having a child is not a trivial everyday task, which doesn´t have any severe influences.

It´s a question about human life. — Antinatalist

The basic argument is as follows: we have no moral right to cause something that radically changes the existence  of another individual or –  to be more precise: from non-existence to existence or vice versa (in other words, from a non-individual/+ non-existence into existence or vice versa is also regarded as a change here), or to directly affect the existence of another human being if it is not possible to hear this individual in the matter. — Antinatalist

Now with deciding something for someone against their will. The bad thing is a decision being made for you against your will. That can't happen to the non-existent child, they have no will. When will that bad thing happen - the decision being made against their will? — Isaac

No, not in the slightest. My objection is as above. When considering harms it is normal to weigh greater goods against them so that argument fails on its own. When considering dignity/autonomy there is no will to oppose at the time of the decision and no decision to be made once there's a will to oppose, so there's no consequence of one's actions to consider so far as dignity/autonomy is concerned. My actions now in conceiving a child will not result in a future situation where their will will be opposed in any but the normal ways we all accept already. — Isaac

I was looking for some support for that position. As it stands it's not a common intuition, nor have you given any reason why we should think this way. Putting the word 'just' in front of the thing you want to dismiss doesn't constitute an argument against it. — Isaac

If e can consider their dignity on the grounds that they will soon have such a thing then we can consider their interests on the same grounds. — Isaac

We currently feel that the non-existence of the subject is sufficient ground to treat infractions against their hypothetical will very differently to infractions against the actual will of an existent person. You feel we should change that intuition to treat them the same. I'm asking why you think we should. All you've provided so far is that you think we should, not why. — Isaac

In any event, the wording would only matter to deontologists. The asymmetry argument is of no use to a pure consequentialist? — Down The Rabbit Hole

For your first sentence, maybe so. But I´m not sure, I have forgot so much of the philosophy, that I have read in my life. — Antinatalist

In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: δέον, 'obligation, duty' + λόγος, 'study') is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules, rather than based on the consequences of the action.[1] It is sometimes described as duty-, obligation-, or rule-based ethics.[2][3] Deontological ethics is commonly contrasted to consequentialism,[4] virtue ethics, and pragmatic ethics. In this terminology, action is more important than the consequences. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics