sure. Which was the counter argument that got me. — khaled

I would just say that perhaps you might want to look at the original foundations on which your particular AN stance was using. I find there to be a lot of problems with aggregate-style utilitarianism.. You start getting things like Effective Altruism movement, and all that which when taken to the extreme, makes us become slaves to the best outcome, no matter what.

However, even if we were to use your aggregated scenario.. by putting more people into harm's way (birthing them) you are just perpetuating the situation in the long term which is not fixing it.

Also, I would say that in the realm of ethics, using someone for some greater good, is a violation. Giving to charity is a good thing. Duping someone to give you money so you can give to charity is not, cause you are using someone, even if it is supposed to help a greater amount of people, or some abstract cause. So rather, I would not think so much on the aggregate level, but on the person you are affecting with your decision. That person is the one whose whole life will be affected by this decision. All instances of harm will befall that person. An abstract group of people might benefit from this person being born, but you now using this person's harm for this cause. Rather, we should help those people in need without using someone else, similar to taking someone's money to give to charity situation.

As to your question of whether I can see it, I have to say I really struggle. Perhaps in glimpses. But it's difficult for me to wrap my head around the framing. It's not so much that I can't see that, while you're alive, you're bound up in lots of relations which of course mean you have to compromise. But I don't see not existing as an alternative to compromising. Not existing is simply absence. It's not an alternative to anything, because it is not anything. And the decision to not have children happens in the sphere of existence, so it's itself part of the compromises. How could it be any other way? — Echarmion

It's bound up for us, the already existing.. We essentially have the binary existential choice of keep existing or die. We don't have to put a new person into this choice. We don't have to put a new person into the game. We don't have to make that decision on someone else's behalf that will affect them, and as you mentioned, cause conditions for harm and violate their dignity by putting some goal above and beyond that of simply preventing suffering. It's not a hard ethic to follow, which is why I wonder why so much vitriol. It is simply, don't procreate. Not so hard. I'm not saying, "Don't save that drowning person". I am not saying, "Don't punish that criminal", I'm not saying, "Don't do X to already existing person". Rather, here is a chance to cause absolutely no unnecessary harm. Why would you not make that choice, if it is available?

Again, going back to compromise. Once born, survival, etc. becomes part of the game. We do have to make compromises to survive. It's not ideal.
— schopenhauer1

But "not ideal" is still better than nothing, is it not? I mean at least people that exist have some choices. They get to experience sone happiness and exercise some freedom. It's not like we're yanking them out of paradise to incarnate them on earth. They get something. Maybe what they get is nasty, brutish and short, but it cannot be said that this makes it worse than nothing. — Echarmion

I actually think that unless existence is an absolute paradise, it is not appropriate to bring someone into it.

So here is basically how people justify this existence...
1) People are not committing suicide left and right, so it must be better than immediate want for suicide.
Suicide is not a reflex that we have for harm. It is inbuilt that harm to the body is scary and painful.. this goes for supposed "painless" methods that intellectually, we might understand from afar, and becomes scarier as one might try to do it. This is not a good argument why existence must be good "enough".

2) Harm/suffering creates meaning (I call this the Nietzschean stance).
To me, this sounds like post-facto justification. Since we can't get rid of suffering, we need to do the less optimal choice of making friends with it and incorporating it in our credos. So, "No pain, no gain" or "Life is meaningful only after some hardship" becomes the norm. I have a problem with bringing people into existence knowing that they will experience hardship and then justifying this as "not bad" because they will find meaning in it. It does violate the axiom of dignity/harm, and it seems just a way to make this seem not so bad.

A utopia/paradise is indeed something that is pretty much unimaginable. Why? Because even the harm/suffering that one needs for meaning in this world would either be a) irrelevant in the paradise (and we don't know what it means for suffering to not exist), or b) it would exist but only if you wanted it, and can be turned off at any time. Boredom would also be irrelevant, so the whole, "But suffering makes us less bored" doesn't hold up in this context.

This brings me to another problem.. Because suffering in this world cannot be turned off at any time, people think that it must be a good or necessary thing. That's not true, just because it is the case. Just because there is no alternative, doesn't de facto make it good or necessary.

Also, putting this scheme of overcoming harm/challenges/suffering as above and beyond the actual harm/challenges/suffering is putting again, another thing above the dignity of the person. All that matters is no unnecessary harm befalls someone, when you can prevent it. Here is a chance to do that absolutely, no compromises.

But at least while alive, we can strive for the ideal. At least when alive, the ideal exists as an ideal. Without that, not only is the ideal unfulfilled, it's gone. Nothing there to have ideals in the first place. Isn't it better to strive constantly for the ideal, rather than fulfill it in some tiny way, only to destroy it utterly?

I actually don't think it's a problem to strive for unattainable ideals. I actually think it's one thing that possibly makes life worth living - to have this goal always to guide you. It's perhaps what people look for when they look for "spirituality". What I don't see is why giving the next person the chance to strive for the ideal is not worth something to you. — Echarmion

The ideal for not causing suffering is not procreating. Once alive, the ideal of not causing suffering is broken down into necessities of survival in a community. It then turns into the compromises I am discussing. Are there better modes for our community? Perhaps, but that's another discussion. I personally think we can do better acknowledging that we are in conditions of harm and form communities of pessimism that acknowledge this case. Gripe away everybody, gripe away.. But not man people will agree with me on that.. You see, more compromises.

How convenient. This way you get to just avoid having to deal with any lines of argument you can't answer. — Isaac

I tried to ask you to stop with the vitriol and you refused. That's your deal.

I reject this. The opposite is true. If I make my decisions solely based on "negative outcomes", then all my decisions are dictated by other people. And this, if applied universally, turns everyone into a zombie only ever reacting to other people's emotions. — Echarmion

Just imagine you are not debating me, your bitter opponent apparently- can you see ways, even if you cannot under "Echarmion" just somehow, looking beyond what you think to be the case, see how possibly "already existing" and having to compromise to survive in a community is not the same as starting a completely new person, where we indeed do not have to compromise? This is not special pleading either. That would be if the situations were truly the same. They are not. I'm not asking you to agree with me, but to at least see where I'm coming from with the difference. I'm not even asking you to reiterate your claim, as I've seen it several ways.

I think it is wrong to use individuals for some cause beyond the individual (which is my main contention).
— schopenhauer1

This is just a really weird thing to say as a justification for not allowing individuals to exist.

Like your argument is that we must respect the individual, and you express that respect by making sure no individual ever gets the chance to be. — Echarmion

I can see how this does seem weird at first. However, if the axiom holds true to "Not cause unnecessary conditions of harm that affects other people than this isn't so weird. People don't need to exist for any X reason. But one should not start the conditions for harm on others. Doing anything outside of this would be violating the axiom.

Again, going back to compromise. Once born, survival, etc. becomes part of the game. We do have to make compromises to survive. It's not ideal. Starting a new person is something where no compromise on another's behalf has to be made. Remember, this is coming from a person-affecting view. It is absolutely unnecessary for the person this will be affecting to cause this condition for them to be harmed. If you want to take it a step further, they then in turn will not be born to violate axiom of harm in the less absolute state of affairs of someone who exists and has to live in the world. So to sum it up surely, once alive, it is best not to violate harm knowingly, but it will happen. This ideal simply will not be lived up to once alive. It is almost in conflict with how survival is carried out. Here is a case, however, where a very simply non-action leads to no harm for someone else.

And I know where you are going to take this..

How can an ethic be right if it can never live up to an ideal except in one instance? But I will let you predictably ask it.

Why is that such a bad situation, may I ask? — Olivier5

Perhaps you can try to answer that first based on what I said. If you get it wrong, I will correct you, but I believe I have stated it already.

This not-replying-to-me-but-really replying-to-me just looks childish. Grow up. — Isaac

Dude you lost your chance to argue with me, as you have completely disrespected me and attacked me personally. In these debates, you can debate the argument, but you have argued in complete viciousness against me, that I can't pretend like debating you would be fair to myself. So no.

The fact is that nobody was technically 'put' in such position, because to exist is to be in that position, and no one even existed before they were in that position. It's not like you can summon the soul of your future child and ask him whether he wants to exist or not... — Olivier5

Oh I'm not going through this again. You have to do the hard work of reading what we wrote on this already, so not giving a full response to it. What I am trying to say is that once born, you de facto have to follow the dictates of what it means to survive as a human. You do not like this? Go kill yourself, right? However, this in itself is a bad situation you are putting someone in. If you do not like the game you kill yourself, but exactly as you say, there is no way for the person to preview all the things about the game and decide on if they want to play. So do not make the decision for them that affects them so, and puts them in this "Do the game or die situation", as far as the parent making the decision for someone.

To those concerned about political actions.. see what I said about the difference between the role of politics and ethics.

And great point.

Life is often better than the alternative. That's my point and it is indeed a very simple point. — Olivier5

You are not getting the point, sir. The fact that someone was put into the situation of "play the game or kill yourself" is the point. You have to take one step back and see the whole picture from a procreation decision-making point of view, not just "once already born" point of view.

But to think that to give life is always inherently morally wrong, in any time and at any place, to me that's courting the kind of (admittedly flippant) response I gave you: if you hate life so much, you're welcome to quit. Will make room for the rest of us. — Olivier5

This is the exact callous thinking that makes procreation wrong. Forced into de facto circumstances of survival..etc. But if you don't like the game-system, go kill yourself. What great alternatives you have now imposed on someone!

As @khaled brought up, procreation can be a kind of kidnapping into a game. You force them to play, and then you try to justify it.

And the reason I don't buy it is what Isaac basically just said. — khaled

Yeah, but this again, is not my main contention. If you are not convinced that the efficacy of using probabilities is not a good argument against aggregate utilitarianism, that doesn't bother me much because even if we were certain of knowing the probabilities of aggregate utilitarianism, I think it is wrong to use individuals for some cause beyond the individual (which is my main contention).

As far as how it fits into things like political actions.. I think politics supervenes on ethics, but is not the same thing. Politics is a way of survival whereby we put people in charge of the group to make these decisions on an aggregate level. However, I would hope while functioning in the role of politician that they keep to some personal ethical guidelines. So that same individual functioning in the role of political decision-maker also when interacting with people on an ethical level, does not use people, treat them as means to an end, etc.

The point is not that having children is no longer harmful, or that there is some "greater cause" that justifies it, it is that the alternative, not having children is ALSO harmful. Not to the child, but to those the child would have helped.

In both cases, we cannot pinpoint the harm being done. I know my child will be harmed, but I don't know how. Point is, I also know that the people he would have helped would be harmed by him not being around but I don't know how, in the exact same way. So now EITHER option is risky. Either option harms people. — khaled

Again, this isn't even my main contention. I was almost not going to bring it up due to this kind of response. But where the probabilities of how it affects the aggregate is practically immeasurable (the butterfly effect), the actualities of birth negatively affecting the individual that will be born is 100%.

Hi Cobra, really good points.. And I agree with most of them, especially the specific causation issue being a strawman in that OP. Can you elaborate on your idea of objective suffering? Also, you will more likely get people's attention to respond if you quote them and mention them. These features will allow the person you are responding to, to see that they have a response or a mention. To respond to someone, simply click the "Reply" button (curved arrow) on the bottom of a post. To mention someone, click the @ symbol on the editor tool when typing your response. To quote a specific point, you can click and drag over someone's text and then click the "quote" button that displays.

How would you respond to this?

The claim is that, by not having children, you are harming those they could have helped. And I don't really find "You couldn't know that having children will result in them helping people more than average" convincing but it was my first line of defense. Most people have a positive impact overall I'd say.

And if you want to commit to "It is not harming them since you were never responsible for them" then that would put you in a weird situation when it comes to saving drowning people. Because then it becomes wrong to save them. They could have been trying to commit suicide. And by saving them you risk harming them. However, if not being responsible for someone means you are not harming them, then by not saving the drowning person you are not harming them (since you can't really argue that you have a responsibility there, unless you're a life guard). So it becomes: Save(risk of harm) or Don't Save(No risk of harm) and by that logic you would be obligated to let them drown.

Point is that it becomes similar to the situation of finding someone drowning. I apply my system:

Would they have suffered if I hadn't been there? Yes. Ergo, I do not have to pick the least harmful option (because it's not my responsibility), but I still can

Now we consider alternatives:
1- Save the drowning person / Have children:
Likely to be good overall. Small chance of being bad overall.

2- Do not save the drowning person / Do not have children:
Likely to be bad overall. Small chance of being good overall.

The key is that option 2 is actually more risky. And is not 0 risk, if you consider the "system" as comprising of everyone not just the parent and child.

So the less risky option is clearly 1. But you do not have to pick this. — khaled

I just don't buy into this kind of aggregated utilitarianism. My view has always been person-affecting. That is to say, the locus of ethics is at the level of individual, not an aggregate. Using this kind of aggregation puts some abstract cause above and beyond the individual. In a less absolute argument against it but still relevant is that it relies on probabilities and contingencies one can never know for certain regarding how it affects the aggregate (however, we do know how that birth affects the person being born, almost certainly negatively to some degree).

However, the practical application of the probabilities issue, is not my main contention. Again, it is not recognizing that the locus of ethics lies with individual experiences. When I want to prevent suffering, I am preventing unnecessary harm from taking place (for what would be that future person presumably). I am not doing it for some overall scheme. Conversely, having a child to help some aggregate scheme, is using that child's negative experience for some cause. That is using people, and as I've stated before, I believe this violates their dignity (once a person is actually born), to put some other cause above the harm/suffering/impositions put upon the person that would be born.

Which would seem a further argument against your position, since it makes it even harder to justify ever taking any action. Why single out childbirth? — Echarmion

Because it's a foregone conclusion you are always going to unintentionally cause some harm once born. Try your best, but the outcomes simply won't pan out. Once born into existence, compromises are necessary, and those compromises do indeed lead to harm. So, if anything, I see this as more reason why childbirth leads to inevitable suffering and thus more of a reason prevent it. You can prevent all conditions for harm instead of yet another person who will compromise and will be affected by others having to compromise to live.

However, would you willingly try to cause unnecessary harm (assuming you knew what you were doing was indeed harmful rather than something else like "just punishment" or corrective action)?
— schopenhauer1

This is essentially asking "are you evil"? — Echarmion

Well, I'm not going that far, but you can prevent unnecessary harm if you prevent birth.

However, procreation is a situation where it is absolutely 100% known you can prevent future conditions for all other harm. This indeed is a case where it is perfectly known that all suffering can be prevented.
— schopenhauer1

Yeah, at the price of total destruction of everything else that has any value whatsoever. A weird trade to make. — Echarmion

Weird (to you) but doesn't mean wrong. Nothing needs to exist simply because you like the notion, especially so if it means causing unnecessary negative experiences/outcomes for someone else. That person's eventual harm should not be some sacrifice you make (on their behalf) so you can have X thing carried out.

And of course the slogan was cynical. It was nothing but a cruel joke. — Echarmion

The point was that your idea seems cynical as well, "No pain, no gain".. which is essentially what it amounts to when you put anything other than consideration of someone else's harm/suffering/negative outcomes in a decision that affects them. So you will put some fluff around it, still the same, something like, "Pain is necessary because I want X thing to be played out by someone else". You can insert anything in X you want from something as banal as "more plastic being made" to "happiness being experienced". It's all put above and beyond causing unnecessary conditions for someone else to be harmed and imposed upon (situations of "dealing with", etc. which I have explained in previous posts).

I can say because it uses people or that it violates their dignity once born because it puts some reason above the person's pain affects them.. but you will just keep asking for why that is wrong.. so I will just leave it at that.
— schopenhauer1

Out dignity is our dignity as subjects, as ends in and of themselves, not subject to nature of outside forces. So it's subjecting ourselves to some seemingly objective measure of suffering that is against our dignity. — Echarmion

It doesn't matter because we know suffering/harm befalls everyone at some point- even right at the moment of birth much of the time. But yes I know you will try to make everything harmful seem necessary, not so bad, etc. A form of gaslighting but keep em coming.

You see, the parent would be preventing these conditions of freedom and thus it is justified, as freedom (of choice?) needs to exist for some reason in the first place and is more important than the negative duty to not cause unnecessary harm somehow.
— schopenhauer1

There is no "justification", as there is no need to "justify" an action that is according to a maxim can be universalised. So long as people remain ends in themselves, rather than being subjugated to an outside force or another will, there is nothing that needs justifying. — Echarmion

Ironically, since procreation is something that is subjected from an outside force, your maxim might be used against yourself. The only move you can make here is to do the usual, "But no one exists prior", yet this doesn't negate that an outside force will affect someone. It's like saying if someone decided to immediately punch the new person in the face once born, that this is okay, as it was pre-planned (before there was a person with a "will") :roll:. Clearly not.

Anyways, not sure why this odd cause of yours (Kant's) needs to take place if the outcome is harm. It is yet just another maxim put above and beyond causing unnecessary conditions of harm for someone else. That's the main objection there.

And does this not entail some responsibility? It's not like you couldn't have predicted your child would be harmed, no you knew it would happen. And continued with the course of action that would lead to it anyways. Why? Normally we'd need some justification when doing something harmful to others. — khaled

Exactly. @Echarmion seems to try to overlook the fact that it is perfectly known that all harm can be prevented in the decision not to affect a future person by procreating them. So he is going to worm around this idea by saying that parents must create people to create conditions of "freedom" (??) so that this can be carried out.. You see, the parent would be preventing these conditions of freedom and thus it is justified, as freedom (of choice?) needs to exist for some reason in the first place and is more important than the negative duty to not cause unnecessary harm somehow.

So what's the point of saying that at all? — khaled

Because he's fishing for a "gotcha" on the non-existence front. It's like one of the few tactics trying to be used: Can't compare to non-existence, denying nested causation, antinatalism isn't even considered under morality.

Why though? I mean what's the point? Why would I conceive my relationship towards other people as primarily negative, in the sense that any interaction basically requires justification because of the potential of some future condition of harm? Who benefits? — Echarmion

Because you cannot predict what behaviors cause harm, it is a fact, once born you will cause unintentional harm. However, would you willingly try to cause unnecessary harm (assuming you knew what you were doing was indeed harmful rather than something else like "just punishment" or corrective action)? I think not. However, procreation is a situation where it is absolutely 100% known you can prevent future conditions for all other harm. This indeed is a case where it is perfectly known that all suffering can be prevented.

The solution you're suggesting amounts to protecting freedom by preventing any freedom, which is obviously self-defeating. — Echarmion

Why would some abstract cause like carrying out freedom be more important than affecting someone negatively? Nazis had a slogan of "Work sets you free" for example. The notion that some positive duty abstract thing is more important than the negative duty for not creating someone else's conditions for negative experience/outcomes seems wrong.. I can say because it uses people or that it violates their dignity once born because it puts some reason above the person's pain affects them.. but you will just keep asking for why that is wrong.. so I will just leave it at that.

I don't know what you're referring to here, can you quote it? — Echarmion

Here:

The responsibility to have prevented this unnecessary harm, in this case lies with the person who creates the conditions for all other harms (and impositions) to occur for the future person who will be born from the decision.

Note, this doesn't mean that the parent is the cause of all specific harms, simply that the parent is the cause of not preventing (and more accurately, enabling) the conditions for these unnecessary harms. There is a difference you are conflating

Edit: Also note, that the condition of being born, in order to "know" one is being harmed and imposed upon, doesn't compute in this argument. It is simply about not creating conditions of harm and impositions for someone else. Period. The person who would have been affected, does not need to be born to know that this was prevented. It is simply about that situation not occurring for someone else. It is about not creating a future condition. You certainly do not need someone to exist currently for this condition not to be created in the first place. The thing is, it really is not a hard ethic. It's certainly not the only one, but it's not a difficult one to put into practice. Just don't do something that is easy to prevent. — schopenhauer1

I have already explained that I think suffering is only relevant insofar as it affects people's ability to practice their freedom. It follows naturally from this that there wouldn't be a general responsibility to prevent all suffering altogether.

What point do you want me to expand on? — Echarmion

But then, procreating someone will lead to this scenario, even as you have defined it thus: "Affects people's ability to practice their freedom".. And again.. I'm ready for your (eventual) response to the tune of "Not many people experience suffering". I mean I can define anything so it evades a certain principle. Suffering is generally a negative experience of pain, distress, hardship, etc. that one does not desire. But again, I can still stick to your peculiar definition and antinatalism applies.. Prevent this (your definition) from happening.

But then doesn't preventing harm here turn into preventing the conditions that allow harm to be assessed? — Echarmion

@khaled will probably answer this in his own way, but I believe I have answered this above:

Also note, that the condition of being born, in order to "know" one is being harmed and imposed upon, doesn't compute in this argument. It is simply about not creating conditions of harm and impositions for someone else. Period. The person who would have been affected, does not need to be born to know that this was prevented. It is simply about that situation not occurring for someone else. It is about not creating a future condition. You certainly do not need someone to exist currently for this condition not to be created in the first place. The thing is, it really is not a hard ethic. It's certainly not the only one, but it's not a difficult one to put into practice. Just don't do something that is easy to prevent. — schopenhauer1

It was an analogy, to explain the principle. — Echarmion

I guess if it is just "Look something else that is similar" rather than "Look, because it's the law this must be the best way to look at it.." The implication could have been the second.

Does the universe do that, in your opinion? — Echarmion

Nope, just hope you weren't inadvertently implying that about law.

What's so hard to understand about the fact that I just don't agree with this principle? You keep repeating it like some sort of magic incantation, but I already stated outright that I disagree. — Echarmion

Just making sure you know there is no moving target. What we are discussing is what we are discussin and not some other extraneous factors.

That's the disagreement again. I don't think it does. There is no general responsibility for all possible harm. Rather, there are specific responsibilities towards the people you interact with. — Echarmion

Yes and now you are repeating your claims like an incantation. I already acknowledged this and gave you an answer for the difference.

I'm not. I just disagree that the parent has that responsibility. — Echarmion

Why? Your answer will be truly telling if you understand the difference I explained.

Added a bit more to last post.

Yes. And it's predictable, too. But the responsibility for that harm doesn't lie with just anyone who causes it. It only attaches to specific acts, in the same way that in a legal system, only specific acts are illegal. — Echarmion

This is not about law, so not sure why we need to make those comparisons. Clearly, the law doesn't prevent a lot of things people find immoral or wrong. For example,the law doesn't consider procreation to be illegal, so anything you analogize from this system will of course already be skewed in favor of what you are saying. But you know that. Hell, in 1857, just before the American Civil War, the Supreme Court considered someone a slave no matter what they did otherwise, according to the Dread Scott Supreme Court case. Law changes with attitudes and judges' own propriety. It's not the universe handing down what is right.

I don't get your claim here "It only attaches to specific acts.." You just said earlier you understand nested causation. ALL instances of harm will follow if someone is born. I asked you earlier whether you believe harm occurs after someone is born? The trivially true question is at the heart of the matter. Of course it does. One can prevent all instances of harm. And again, we can debate all day whether a typical life has more than trivial harm, but first I'm trying to understand your evasion of the fact that we all know being born creates the conditions for all the causes for harm in a life. Do not create unnecessary harm for another without cause (ameliorating a worse situation). Same for the axiom of unnecessary impositions and violations of consent.

The responsibility to have prevented this unnecessary harm, in this case lies with the person who creates the conditions for all other harms (and impositions) to occur for the future person who will be born from the decision.

Note, this doesn't mean that the parent is the cause of all specific harms, simply that the parent is the cause of not preventing (and more accurately, enabling) the conditions for these unnecessary harms. There is a difference you are conflating

Edit: Also note, that the condition of being born, in order to "know" one is being harmed and imposed upon, doesn't compute in this argument. It is simply about not creating conditions of harm and impositions for someone else. Period. The person who would have been affected, does not need to be born to know that this was prevented. It is simply about that situation not occurring for someone else. It is about not creating a future condition. You certainly do not need someone to exist currently for this condition not to be created in the first place. The thing is, it really is not a hard ethic. It's certainly not the only one, but it's not a difficult one to put into practice. Just don't do something that is easy to prevent.

No, my beef is less on term limit statutes and more with the erroneous belief that a lack of experience is a plus for performing the job of legislator, unlike every other job. — LuckyR

I understand and can sympathize with that notion. However, look at the partisanship it causes to think about election cycles. Repubs are scared to even condemn the extreme wing and compromise for fear of losing primaries to an upstart.

First comes the question of what outcomes you should will, and only then can we look at what causal chains might be relevant with respect to that outcome. — Echarmion

Even if you define it this way, surely you agree that harm happens once born, right? And I already made references to charmed life response to this, or my willingness to dispute the response that only trivial harm occurs in a typical life. Keep em coming.

Given your definition of harm, yes. — Echarmion

How so? And how would your answer not relate to Benkei's OP about causation? Cause that's where I see this going...

You're not reading it properly. I am not saying nested causation doesn't count. I am saying causation doesn't count, period. It's not enough to be merely part of a causal chain that led to a bad emotional response. That's morally irrelevant. — Echarmion

It's not morally relevant to prevent unnecessary harm to another person (especially keeping mind contingencies discussed already about ameliorating from worse harm for people who already exist to be harmed)?

What I am saying is "harm", in a moral sense, isn't simply you having a negative emotional response to something. If you trip over your own feet and fall, that will hurt, and you won't like it, but that isn't relevant in any moral sense. Tons of people can be involved in the relevant causal chain that lead to you falling - not just your parents, but anyone who had any interaction with you whatsoever. That doesn't mean any of them harmed you.

But if someone does intentionally trip you for fun, that is harm. The difference is not that tripping you is somehow more causal, or that it hurts more to get intentionally tripped. It's that you don't want to be afraid of constantly being hurt by people for fun, and so hurting people for fun is wrong. — Echarmion

Oh this stupid thing...back to Benkei's OP of causation. So, there are levels of nested causation. If you can prevent ALL instances of harm from befalling someone, do it. (Cue more stupid argument about someone not existing now but only in future which has been argued already).

I'm disputing your definition of "harm", so I am not sure what to do with that question. — Echarmion

Ah you would quote the prior version I had :D.

But what are you disputing about harm.. Does that even matter? You don't think people get harmed after being born? I know you can throw out some wild scenario of a perfectly charmed life but if you do, I won't take it seriously. And if you try to say there is mostly trivial harm for most people, I would dispute that and we can spend some pages on it cause what else do we do here, right?

No, it won't. Or, more specifically, there is no capacity to harm people by making them exist. That's not harm. No moral subject is limited in it's ability to exercise it's choice by being created in the first place. — Echarmion

So the possibility of any of the very wide range of harms don't have the possibility of befalling the person born? And via experience, not only any of the possibilities, but inevitably some of them won't befall the person born?

But then, as I said, if the focus is on protecting people's ability to make their own decisions, there is no reason to have a rule that no-one benefits from. — Echarmion

The capacity to harm someone in this fashion exists, no? If the person uses this capacity, harm will incur, no? Not hard.

The proposal you make is like such a small step. It's as if we were in a battleship on the morning before a naval battle debating what to have for breakfast. You are part of the problem just for making such a suggestion.

I'm the kind of person who thinks even advocacy for gay rights or ending racism is a waste of time. If you really think something like the lack of term limits for some elected positions is a problem worth discussing I don't know where you've been sticking your head for the last 40 years. — Garth

Um, the battleship is cracking and sinking. Term limits on Congress is actually a pretty massive structural change. The goal is to take away the downsides of always thinking about next primary/election cycle and becoming seen as "entrenched" as an insider. So many people are turned off by the whole system because of "insiders" who are out of touch.

Oh, I'm sorry, not trying to be cagey. POTUS 45 is the most obvious recent example, (for those who follow news). — LuckyR

So the president isn't Congress.. But if anything, that is a great reason why we need term limits.

The problem here is similar: when you say "harm", you mean an objective state of affairs, i.e. "the amount of harm in the universe has increased". I don't think "harm" or "suffering" can be meaningfully assessed from such a (imagined) objective vantage. Because to me, the moral relevance of "harm" or "suffering" is the effect it has on people's ability to make decisions. — Echarmion

But that's why I mentioned capacity to do harm. Does the capacity exist? Then don't do it. That capacity exists, even if there is no one benefitting from not being harmed. That is the focus in these formulations at least.

I have an example worse than the current Congress... — LuckyR

So are you waiting for me to say, "Go on..."?

This just goes back to my first point: I do literally believe that someone needs to exist in order for us to conclude that there was harm. — Echarmion

Yes, I get that flawed reasoning.

This is true in the literal sense that obviously if no-one was around at all, "harm" wouldn't exist, since it's a human concept.

It's also true in the sense that harm is something that happens to discrete, existing individuals, and so of course only exists when they do. — Echarmion

So maybe I can help.. IF the capacity exists to cause unnecessary harm that affects someone else, don't do it. You don't look at the reformulations but the straw mans you want to see so you can knock down the straw.

And it's also true when we consider the hypothetical future person, because to conclude that they will be harmed, we need to imagine a second counterfactual future where they exist but whatever harmful thing we imagine didn't happen to them. — Echarmion

Let me repeat.. IF the capacity exists to cause unnecessary harm that affects someone else, don't do it.
Once there is no capacity for this to exist, this ethic doesn't apply.

That is wrong, I think, because this abstract position is fictional. But I can't think of a way to explain this in a way you're likely to find convincing. — Echarmion

It's because you are looking for ways to move the argument of existence vs. non-existence. You are trying to do "If a tree falls in the woods..". Do you exist? Do you have the capacity to cause this to happen? Yes? Prevent it from happening. If no person exists, then this ethic doesn't apply, as there is null sets that this applies to. If one person exists in the world, it doesn't apply. If there are two people in the world that cannot reproduce, then this doesn't apply. It only applies, if the capacity is there. But you knew this and are looking for more straws to grasp and build stuff with.

In what way is someone dead in a different way if they are not born than if they have lived and died? — SolarWind

I already explained my contention in what you quoted.

Cue current dysfunctional Congress...

If I am against suffering due to torture, I must be against suffering due to being born. And I just am not. Weird, right? — Echarmion

I think you are not seeing the one last step the ANs are taking. Causing the conditions of suffering can lead to any number of harms, many of which were unforeseen. Any and all harms can be prevented, not just the possibility of torture.

I can tell you a hundred times that we can only compare situations of different existences (tortured child - not tortured child, seeing child - blind child), but never compare an existence with a nonexistence. — Echarmion

From what I see from @khaled, he's not comparing to non-existence, just saying, "IF there is a situation to create unnecessary suffering and there is a lack of consent that can be had (and he gives the contingent circumstances of not improving a situation, permissions etc.), don't do it as that will affect a person negatively in the future and violate consent". It is about preventing bad circumstances and violations, not comparing them to non-existence.

I don't know why posters are assuming that any argument can't be debated on a philosophy forum. Obviously it's debatable, and the people who hold the beliefs in the premises, believe them to be valid and make sense. To say otherwise is special pleading to undermine the fact that this is the case with all ethics. To assume otherwise would be to assume that all ethical arguments must convince everyone immediately of the argument, otherwise it is invalid. Stupid.