So by what principle would you be making those choices? — Possibility

I can make any number of choices based on preferences that are not constrained by the negative ethics.

To the extent that I am ignorant of, isolated from or excluding the effect my actions may have on others, those actions are more likely to be perceived as forceful or harmful to someone. By instead acting to increase awareness, and choosing to connect and collaborate in some way with every interaction, I minimise harm and aggression without the need for negative ethics, and continue to exist and to act without fear. — Possibility

In the intra-wordly mess of the real world, someone will ALWAYS be harmed by your decisions, and you by there's. This is one of the important points that he brings up. It doesn't negate negative ethics though. It just means that unfortunately, once born, negative ethics will always in some way be violated. In a way, another reason for antinatalism. See here his points:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Cabrera_(philosopher).

People make choices in that direction in the form of suicide. — TheMadFool

I don't believe it would be moral to create people such that, their best option is "live out your life you don't want or go kill yourself". Suicide is not the same as not being born.

I guess I'm saying, in a very important way, antinatalists are unable to distinguish the patient (life) from the disease (suffering) and this leads them to the mistaken conclusion that life (patient) = disease (suffering). — TheMadFool

Well, philosophical pessimists (which I would argue is slightly different than the antinatalism), would argue that indeed life/human nature entails structural suffering (at least as it is now), such as deprivation, so there's that. But also, in your scenario, the analogy would only be the same if the doctor first caused conditions known to make the patient suffer, and then tried to fix it. Otherwise the analogy is not apt to the antinatalism argument whereby the parent is creating a life that will suffer, de novo, in the hopes that it won't be that bad or they will find some coping techniques such that the good will outweigh the bad. Either way, this is all bypassing my main argument which is that the negative ethics of not causing conditions of harm and the non-aggression rule was violated in order to follow a positive ethics.

Of course the antinatalist will now mention inevitable irremediable suffering to revive their now dead argument but for such situations people generally agree that people so unfortunate be given the choice to end their lives. However, this in no way gives any support to the antinatalist position that all life, everywhere, always = suffering. — TheMadFool

I don't think the argument ever died ha. But, again, suicide would not be the same as not being born.

You mean through things like envy and financial access to such methods leading to vast merit based differences and prejudice fueled ever more by increasing wealth inequalities? I mean; the ego of a human dictator is somewhat tolerable because at least they are mortal and bleed... However how do you contain the ego of someone who can habe god like abilities the common man could never dream of having? Scary notions indeed. — Mark Dennis

Yeah, this dystopian world you present sounds like exactly the case of following X "positive agenda" (become super-human) at the behest of negative ethics.

So how would you respond to the notion that their may be ways to edit our very experience of suffering into something not only tolerable but useful? I mean if your children could be like Claire from heroes or wolverine from X-men with a regeneration factor and had access to a mental switch to turn off pain sensation at will and is immune to most diseases and can freely choose to opt out of life due to fatigue or the human lifespan remains largely untouched how would you feel then?

Y'know assuming we can survive climate change and travel and colonise the rest of our solar system. To be honest to that end I feel gene editing might become vital to surviving different environments. I'm sure future Astronaughts could do with the ability to maintain muscle mass in zero g for starters.. — Mark Dennis

I guess the test would be, when creating this super-human stuff, are you creating harm for various generations leading up to this (even just by procreating them into a non-super-human world prior to the actual advent of such technology)? If so, then this would be an example of following a positive agenda that is violating the negative ethics.

I mean, obviously I have lots more reasons but challenge is a good one. What else is there to do? I mean, religion likes to call all this testing but really I think its challenging and I'd be very open to hearing your thoughts on the value of The Challenges of Life.

However obviously that is not to say negative ethics aren't without challenge as you yourself can attest but it would be interesting to hear what you feel is more challenging; negative or positive ethics? Or are they both different challenges that aren't worth comparing in that way? — Mark Dennis

Well I am not against giving oneself a positive ethics. Rather, what I am saying is it would be wrong to pursue a positive agenda by violating negative ethics. Thus, if your positive ethics is such that you think by doing X act (which harms someone and forces something on them) will be more beneficial for that person later on because that is what your ethic says is good, that would be wrong.

I have to agree that this is where your argument breaks down, schopenhauer1. A principle should be able to stand without exception, otherwise it is neither a foundation, nor is it fundamental as such. It’s like the Ten Commandments...followed immediately by hundreds of qualifying regulations and exceptions... — Possibility

So here is where I sort of agree with you.. The principle is the standard, and it indeed DOES break down after birth. This is the intra-worldly affairs @darthbarracuda mentioned, versus the interwordly affairs. Simply speaking, the standard would be PERFECTLY followed before birth, but indeed, the messiness of time/space makes this perfection a broken reality.. like the suffering of existing itself. Similar to Plato's ideals and the shadows. Prior to birth, the perfect state could have been obtained (not existing). After birth, messiness and then justifications for the messiness.

Anyways, I explained the reason for the messiness. That is to say that ethics, in the intra-worldly affairs of being born is about what is happening to the autonomous individual. Ethics is nothing without this. Thus, a third-party principle like, "people must live in order to collaborate" would be incoherent in an ethics that is about the individual, as this is now about some third-party principle being played out by those individuals.

As a suggestion of positive ethics, I offer the following ethical principle: increase awareness, connection and collaboration. There being no positive without a corresponding negative, one should also strive to reduce ignorance, isolation and exclusion - but that’s pretty much the same thing. I think you’ll find that this principle stands without exception (although it requires more courage than most of us can summon on our own). — Possibility

No, the violation at birth of non-aggression and non-harm in order to follow your "collaboration" agenda just doesn't fly. You are making people HAVE to follow your agenda of collaboration. Why does this matter more than things like not causing conditions of harm upon another? You think it sounds good, so someone else MUST live this collaboration scheme out? Not a good excuse.

In following this ethical principle, procreation often appears to be a good thing, but it’s ultimately an act of ignorance - one that also encourages parents to isolate and exclude in a number of ways. So to reduce procreation, we should be increasing awareness of more far-reaching and less exclusive ways to connect and collaborate in the world. — Possibility

I can agree with that part.

Negative ethics seems more effective, even when it’s flawed, only because it allows you to perceive yourself as ‘good’ simply by opposing certain behaviour in others. But negative ethics is for evaluating our own behaviour, not the behaviour of others. It isn’t meant to be prescriptive, and employed as such, it can only limit our actions, not encourage them. — Possibility

Not sure what you mean. It can encourage to not do something you might otherwise do. One of the best examples of this is by not procreating thus not forcing and not causing the condition of harm on others.

Positive ethics gives us a path to follow, a way to go. Negative ethics only tells us which is the wrong way. — Possibility

I think we can use a test of obligation. Is it more obligatory to not harm and force? Is it more obligatory to follow X path? It does not seem obligatory to create X positive ethics. I am not saying we shouldn't follow a positive ethic, but I am saying that to negate the principle of non-harm/non-force in the service of a positive ethic would be the wrong approach, as now is being willed into someone else's agenda at the cost of being harmed and forced to play out X agenda.

The topic was about whetever negative ethics on it's own entails we ought to kill all life or not. So, my scenario was obviously about that-i do not know why you thought my scenario was about procreation. — HereToDisscuss

Ok I think I see. You are saying, shouldn't we prevent people who will cause pain to others. My response would still be that once born, considerations of other people's autonomy come into play. This autonomy is based on the fact that it is individuals who are the center of ethical considerations, not amorphous principle calculations (like the greatest good or something like that). Thus, the amorphous utilitarian calculation of destroying people who cause harm, would not be moral, even with good intentions. There is preventing harm and there is non-aggression. Both have to be followed. In the case of birth, both happen to point towards non-procreation. You aren't forcing, you aren't harming by abstaining from procreation.

Since there can be exceptions to this principle, can you tell us how we can know when we can violate this thing and why we can violate it at these times-that is, why they are exceptions to the rule?
I believe this approach may work better instead of us just repeating our points. — HereToDisscuss

Yes, in the instance of procreation one would perfectly be following the principles of non-harm and non-aggression by abstaining from procreation. AFTER someone is born, they are an autonomous person, an individual, someone who has an identity to point at in the world. Once born, circumstances of time and place are immediately something to consider. There is the fact that people need time to develop into autonomous individuals, and there is the fact that sometimes, at the end of life, or in unconscious situations, individuals can lose their autonomy as individuals. If ethics is at the level of individual, we have to define individual. People become more autonomous over time. The time of being an adult would be one's most autonomous. However, prior to this, the parent/guardian can have some say in the upbringing of the individual because the assumption is that the person is not developed enough to be autonomous yet. Thus, it would be immoral to leave a baby/small child to defend for itself when this leads to obvious harm for that person. The non-harm principle would take place here as there is less autonomy of the child. Once that person is an adult, the full non-aggression principle, comes into effect, and thus "forcing" something (even if you think it is good for them) would be violating this principle. We can debate "when" that transition comes to be, but that would take us down a rabbit hole that is probably beyond the scope of what we are trying to get at. It is not about the impreciseness of that transition, but that a transition does take place.

As for elderly/dementia, the same would apply. They were once autonomous adults, however, they cannot make decisions for themselves and thus, it would be harmful to neglect caring for them. The non-aggression principle would not apply here if one were to take control of certain aspects of their lives. The same can be said of those who are alive but are unconscious or in a coma. The non-harm principle would take precedent here due to lack of autonomy. Again, I would like to not move the parameters of the debate to "when" this transition takes place, just noting that it does. The important thing to remember is that this revolves around autonomous people, once someone is already born.

As far as threat to violence, this is about the other person being the aggressor, someone who is about to or is already violating the principle of non-aggression. One should be allowed to defend oneself from another's aggression if the non-aggression principle is being violated and this violation is directed towards that particular person.

Positive and negative ethics can be a seriously useful distinction when exploring moral systems...

Broadly, all humans have values that are important to them, and morality is roughly the process of promoting/protecting those values in rules/judgments/decisions that encode or enshrine them... — VagabondSpectre

I agree with this so far.

As such, positive ethics are more about agreement than justification. — VagabondSpectre

Yes, that makes sense. But from what I see in your post, you are not disagreeing that indeed, negative ethics is easier to justify. Essentially the OP is suggesting that to bypass the negative ethics or rather to VIOLATE the negative ethics in favor of your own personal idea of positive ethics, is unjustifiable if one wants to be consistent in applying those negative ethics. It seems more obligatory to not force or press others into something or cause harm onto people, or use them for any agenda (positive-intended or otherwise), then it does to be obligated to force positive X onto someone (especially if it it means violating the normally followed negative ethics).

What justifies a positive ethics? When children and people love life. What makes people hate life? Lack of love.

Love is that thing that when you don't feel it it's just a word, it's like it doesn't exist. It's only when you feel it that you see how important it is and that you see the point.

You're constantly conflating love and happiness with well-being and pleasure, they aren't the same. You can be well off and experience lots of pleasures while having a life devoid of love and happiness. You're constantly missing the most important part of the picture. — leo

But this idea works regarding any positive ethics. That is to say, put any X positive ethics (happiness, love, self-actualization, pleasure) and the point still remains. That is to say, by procreating, even so that one can love the child, or the child can experience love, one is bypassing the non-harm principle. That is to never unnecessarily put someone in conditions of harm. This even includes don't put someone in harms way for a good cause. Further, it is also bypassing the non-aggression principle. That is never unnecessarily force something onto someone. Birth is literally forcing a situation onto someone for life. Further, this non-aggression would include not forcing someone for one's own agenda. Thus if the parent wants the child to experience X or live a life of X, Y, and Z, the child is forced/harmed due to wanting to press someone into an agenda. Further, collateral harm will inevitably ensue. That is to say, whatever positive ethics X one wants for the child will always be accompanied by unintended undue harm, nonetheless, that cannot be predicted.

While you're on a mission to spread antinatalism, I'm on a mission to tell you that if you had received more love you wouldn't see things that way.

You would have preferred not to have been born, so you want everyone to feel that way because you think you have it all figured out, but most people don't feel that way and don't want to feel that way, because they still feel or believe in that thing that you've stopped feeling and believing in.

I'd honestly want to meet you, to help you see what you've forgotten to see, because I can't show it to you using words on a screen, and it pains me to imagine you following that path for the rest of your life. Reading your threads it feels like your life has become completely devoid of joy, and all that's keeping you here is that mission to destroy life, because you think you're doing a good thing, but all the people you're ever going to convince are those who focus on the suffering like you. — leo

Well, thank you for trying to show me positiveness in life. You seem like a kind-hearted spirit based on your post. In a way I agree with your "mission". That is to say, I see compassion and helping others as a great way to cope with life. I see antinatalism and philosophical pessimism as actually therapeutic, but starting from a different place. Once life is seen in this way, we can be more tolerant, more compassionate, etc. We can see ourselves as in this together, rebelling against it, and communally seeing the problem. So antinatalism can bring people together in a way through the rebellion :D.

Right, so no one can ever specialize in a topic that they prefer :roll: . Someone who agrees with Plato can't talk about Platonism.. Someone who agrees with panpsychism cannot bring up topics of panpsychism..

It's an argument. It's quite a strong argument against any form of utilitarianism. "Your joy cannot justify my suffering." Schop is extending the complaint of the monster against Frankenstein to that of every unhappy person against their parents. Repetitive is a fair complaint, but not preaching. — unenlightened

That's actually a really good summary.

How is what you're doing not trolling? But here I am feeding you, so that's on me for answering. However, it shows i dont just create a post and leave, I try to defend arguments. In other words I am arguing in good faith and respectfully. Also it may be same topic but from different perspectives. It is also in the realm of philosophy, mainly applied ethics, and there has been philosophical literature on it. At the end of the day I dont have to justify my posts to the likes of you and thus be warned, any trolling response, I will simply not answer ending this rabbit hole you seem to want to create which is to throw ad homs and not discuss substance. Say it to me in PM if you really want but doing it here is simply trolling. So now that I fed you, please go away.

Putting money where one's mouth is - if you'd like to be taken seriously - entails passionate political action. Is your anti-natalism a fair-weather posturing directed exclusively toward feckless internet chatter? Or have you thrown your hat in with the movement? — ZzzoneiroCosm

So this is a lot of ad hominem, not engaging the argument itself.

And of course, I am for the non-aggression principle, which means not forcing your views on others (one of the main reasons not to procreate actually). Thus, I would not force people through political action be antinatalist. Rather, I would argue my point and hope to convince. Why wouldn't a philosophy forum be a good place to argue ethical views?

So at the end of the day, you decide to attack me, mischaracterize my argument, and then try lump me in the mischaracterzed view.

It seems to me worth adding that Plato also was much concerned with the abuses of rhetoric called sophistry, his notions of ideals coming into play as a defense against lies. That is, if you can say what something is in some sense, then you can say what it isn't. And if you can't the former, then the latter becomes difficult, contentious, ultimately a matter resolved by force. — tim wood

Yes, makes sense. Ideals as a shield against extreme relativity. It is interesting.. I wonder if a certain form of perfectionism has pervaded Western culture as a result of the notion of Ideals. If there is a perfect X, how am I not living up to that perfect X? However, in a roundabout way some evolutionary psychology purports that indeed, there may be ideal templates humans look for in things like mates (though I believe this to be too simplistic, reductionistic, and "just so" to be considered absolutely true), and just in nature in general. However, the downsides are believing things have to be "perfect" and general displeasure to anyone that doesn't live up to this standard. That's just some offhand armchair sociological implications I can see perhaps coming from the notion of Ideals.

Also, there seems to be the notion of The Good in Plato. Clearly then, perfection (seeing, understanding, experiencing, following, being the Ideal) is equated with The Good. This of course filters into late Roman and Medieval religious philosophies of understanding The Good and equating it with God (the one from Christianity). This of course, ignores particularities for generality, as the "garb" of the shadow-cave illusions of everyday life are but distortions on the pure Ideals that are not only perfect but Good.

I think again, Schopenhauer has the most interesting take on it. The reason for our aesthetic experiences of beauty in nature and art is because of the non-temporal aspect of the experience. Looking at something without "wanting" or "desiring" brings about some sort of ecstatic feeling that is not normally had in the everyday experiencing of always needing or wanting this or that particular object or experience. During the aesthetic experience one is seeing the Platonic Ideal of that object, and not the everyday distorted aspect that is in time. Again, I don't know if I agree with his theory, but it is certainly a cool twist.

The path to hell is paved with 'positive ethics'. — ovdtogt

Yes. Good way to put it.

Why would it be the other way? I think this is purely up to subjective judgement, though it is a common fact that most people are much more loss averse than gain seeking and I'm one of them — khaled

I think it comes into play most when it comes to procreation. There are several first principles that must be agreed upon-

a) it is not good to cause harm to others when absolutely unnecessary, (unnecessary meaning someone who is already born and can obviously feel lesser and greater pains might die or get seriously ill if you don't do some minor harm).

b) it is not good to force other people into anything, including agendas you think are good for them (with some exceptions (guidance/care for non-adults, dementia for elderly, or unconscious yet alive people), , there seems to be no way around causing, de novo, pain for others, so that they can pursue some happiness/positive goal. Is there "obligation" to make happy people? Is there an "obligation" to not cause suffering? The second one makes more sense in the realm of ethics. Notice I said "obligation". My argument is that, to cause pain because it allows for happiness, or to overlook pain in the hopes of happiness for someone else is wrong as it is forcing harm and violating non-aggression by forcing harm for a particular agenda.

In the case of birth, why should the non-harm/non-aggression principles take a backseat to "but this will be good for that person to be born"? I mentioned jokingly, does the person once born get a spiritual doggy biscuit for "self-actualizing"? You I believe once gave the argument for not forcing others into a game because YOU believe it will be good for them. This is pretty much saying the same thing.

From what I know of Platonic Ideals and Platonism in general, if we are to historicize it, is that its origin has more to do with combining elements of the pre-Socratic philosophies of Heraclitus, Parmenides, and even Pythagoras. That is to say if Heraclitus' metaphysics represented a reality that is always in flux, Parmenides one that is unchanging (which Pythagoras can be said to be a special case of this with mathematical principles), then the Ideas and the shadows on the cave are like a synthesis of these two things. Reality is actually unchanging and can be displayed in universals and mathematics, but our consciousness and sense perceptions are a dim version of this, only seeing the imperfect and "flux" versions of the unchanging realities.

I think Schopenhauer actually did one of the best interpretations of Plato. He essentially interpreted from Platonism that Platonic Forms are in a sense timeless templates of objects that become temporal due to our epistemological natures which comprises time, space, and causality. Anyways, I don't really buy this conception, but I think it takes Platonism to its logical conclusions.

This means that a lot of the problems which form the basis of an antinatalist outlook are being or will be solved. — TheMadFool

I think @180 Proof had in mind more than mere worries about mortality and sickness, though these are certainly problems. By the way, if we include all the mental health problems and even everyday anxieties in the "sickness", then what encompasses sickness would be much larger a category and perhaps even more harmful than what you at first might be thinking. For those who have severe types of mental illness, it can probably never be completely conveyed their perspective to those who don't understand and never experienced it. And sickness itself has too many factors to be done with in 30 years. That is indeed a way too optimistic estimate. There are also misfortunes, accidents, and such contingencies that you may also not be adding to that list of physical harms.

Anyways, what 180 Proof was most likely getting at was a Schopenhaurean form of suffering. This is similar to the Buddhist one. I now label it as "deprivationalism". It is the constant state of needing and wanting. We are deprived of something, whether it be entertainment, survival, or comfort related. This never ends. We can never be said to be completely satisfied. This is the background for which our contingent, utilitarian lives are always operating. As @Inyenzi put it to describe this (what I call) "structural suffering" of human existence:

On my view, there is no higher state of 'happiness' anyway, than the way in which the antinatalist conceives of the unborn. To be unbound from all causes and conditions, where "exists", and "does not exist" doesn't even apply. How could any temporary experience of happiness or pleasure in this world even compare to this? All positive experiences in this world are filtered through the lens of our temporal embodiment as a deprivational human animal - subject to stress, pain, need. suffering, aging and inevitable death. If impregnating a woman somehow thrusts conditions on what was previously unbound by causes and conditions, then it is the ultimate crime. Compared to the timeless peace of the unborn/unconditioned - the experiences of this world are nothing but stress and suffering. — Inyenzi

This reasoning discounts the suffering that would result from frustrating primordial biological drives to procreate - whether self-abstemious or state prohibitionary it's the same deprivation - which trades-off increased suffering of current childless persons for the price of "preventing" "future suffering" of offspring while indifferent to the fact that being regretfully / involuntarily childless persons increases the suffering of their future selves. — 180 Proof

But the "harm" to the parent for not procreating doesn't measure up to the harm done to the future child, especially because it is creating conditions of suffering on behalf of someone else and thus "forcing" their hand. It would be like someone who would really like to force another into X game, and is sad not to force them. Should we allow it, simply because they are sad they can't force someone's hand in something? A more extreme example is someone who gets glee from doing something that would cause harm to others, but thinks what they are doing is good, and is "harmed" by not being allowed to do it.

Misery breeds company. As you point out, schopenhauer 1, at the "the procreational decision" it's always already (2.5 million years!) too late for the "once born" to excise, or talk themelves en masse out of, our species-hardwired, libidinally-facile, procreative drives .... Ethics more profitably focuses on how sufferers Can/Must avoid minimize or relieve increasing suffering (I prefer harm) to sufferers - ourselves and others - rather than, in effect, assuming counterfactually that in some possible world sufferers do not exist, suffering does not exist, and that we ought to strive to actualize, so to speak, that (utopian? extinction?) possibility. 'Destroy the village in order to save the village' - irrational ad absurdum as well as immoral. — 180 Proof

I'm not sure how it is "immoral" to not have any more children. However, the libidinal part can be easily remedied if sex is "necessary" or "common" with modern contraceptives.

I am antinatalist in the same sense I am pro-suicide, pro-euthanasia, & pro-abortion: philosophically, that is, as a hypothetical prospect, or option, - pro or con - for each thinking person to choose for him or herself without coercion by any manifest authority or violence (i.e. non-aggression principle). The reasoning is clear: sufferers ought not increase their own or any other sufferer's suffering, because this abject condition - existence - cannot be prevented ex post facto. The reductio (above) exposes an interpretation of antinatalism that (by neglect) increases suffering (of the "once born") more than it speculatively prevents. — 180 Proof

And of course I am not for coercion either. Thus I only think antinatalism is appropriate to argue and convince others of but never force.

Edit: I added a couple things here @180 Proof. As for not ignoring the post-facto reality of the "once born", I am also in the ballpark of what you are advocating, as a hypothetical option pro or con. However, the overall consequence and utopianism you present I believe to be a bit uncharitable interpretation of antinatalism. It isn't about the end goal, simply about preventing at the margins. Also, I think in an odd way, the pessimism of understanding our situation can somehow be therapeutic for the post-facto reality of the "already born". It can teach patience, compassion, understanding, tolerance, and the idea of not taking things too seriously (when possible and one is not in some physical or mental harm that doesn't even allow this mental trick).

In the context which requires us not to ignore negative ethics. — TheMadFool

It may be, but can you make a few sentences or paragraph actually framing what you are saying about basic necessities and negative ethics.

Well, what about the will-be automomous individuals that won't be born yet? Are those "autonomous individuals" so important that the suffering that they cause are okay? Or, in other words, if the individual brings about a huge amount of suffering, aren't we entitled to prevent their desires and wills so that they do not do it anymore? Isn't this the reasoning we use for punishing criminals?
You do not account those other individuals. — HereToDisscuss

You'd have to explain this a bit more. I'm not quite getting the scenario. If we prevent birth, and that person who was prevented from birth might have caused suffering to others in large quantities.. is it that sort of thing? I'm not quite getting it.

I have showed why it was not merely an agenda though. You just choose to ignore it and are now pretending nobody has tried to justify it-at least in this thread. — HereToDisscuss

Shown WHAT was merely not an agenda?

And "using individuals", in some cases, is okay, right? For example, we punish criminals. We punish children. We sometimes make decisions on behalf of people who are not informed enough to make a good decision even if they do not want it. — HereToDisscuss

As I've said elsewhere: Except for cases which I acknowledged- children needing guidance from parents, self-defense, or the threat-of-force, there are no excuses other than people have an agenda, and they want someone else to follow that agenda and that agenda is more important than the non-aggression principle. Why should it be in this case and not others? Because the will of the parent is strong? Because social pressures can bypass principles of non-aggression?

As for the child needing guidance, I said that this "force" is only temporary time/place, the birth decision reaches all the way into autonomous adulthood. If you need a reminder for the reasoning there.

What do you mean by an "agenda" then? How can it be an agenda when it is the only thing that actually matters when making moral decisions?
Please define that word. — HereToDisscuss

What is the only thing that actually matters? I said non-aggression and non-harm both matter. At the birth decision, we can prevent complete harm onto someone else, and we completely not force a decision onto someone- both principles are perfectly followed. Once you have violated the non-aggression principle and procreated another person- forcing a view, so to say LITERALLY onto another (for a whole lifetime nonetheless!), then the intra-wordly affairs of mitigating non-harm and non-aggression RECOGNIZING the autonomy of the individual who has choices, decisions, wills, desires, ensues. As for punishing criminals, if the justice system is "just", it is probably revolving around the idea of non-aggression, exactly the principle I explained. That is, the person violated this principle to some extent (theft of property, physical violence, threats of violence, threats to property, etc. etc.). Now there may be unjust or unnecessary laws, or misapplied laws, but that's a totally different issue and not necessarily in the realm of ethics proper though tangential.

I mean basic necessities kinda screams out at you that it should be a priority doesn't it? — TheMadFool

But in what context?

I don't know whether I'm agreeing/disagreeing with you here. "Basic necessities" seems self-explanatory right? Perhaps people will argue over what counts as basic but the words "basic necessities" has a ring of compelling urgency right? — TheMadFool

I don't follow. Is this a new idea or something pertaining to a previous post?

Well, i was just trying to show that this has unwanted results (both negative ethics and the non-aggression principle). It just leads to more suffering. So, why exactly should we accept this principle by default? Just because? — HereToDisscuss

So again, you are ignoring the autonomous human part. Autonomous individuals have to be accounted for. If you are paying attention, these ethical theories are grounded in individuals NOT third-party agendas (like some amorphous utilitarian calculation of harm that you proposed in your life-ending scenario). In fact, one of the main reasons for not having people is that it is not using people in order for them to follow third-party agendas, however starry-eyed the reasons (like pursuing happiness, character-building games, finding their way in the current society, making society better, tending the farm, advancing the tribe, following religious principles, etc. etc.). Individuals are where ethics resides because individuals bear the brunt of existence. Society and outside entities may help form individuals, but it is at the individual level that life is experienced, decisions are made, suffering occurs etc. Thus, third-party reasons that affect individuals who can otherwise have a say, would be using those individuals.

Also, how can principles contradict each other? I do not think that is deontological ethics anymore, so i am curious to see your explanation. — HereToDisscuss

Why wouldn't they at times? Non-harm is important, but the principle cannot be forced on others. Non-harm is perfectly legitimate a consideration prior to birth. Harm will be prevented from preventing birth. By having someone, you are causing conditions for harm. Not only that, you are forcing someone to deal with this. By preventing birth, both principles are followed- non-harm and non-aggression. Once born, the intra-wordly rules apply because now there is or will be an autonomous individual, where considerations of non-aggression must be had. It isn't that hard to fathom that both principles can be in effect at the same time, one mitigating the other. Thus it is not purely consequential nor deontological, etc.

Last of all, when confronted with two contradictory principles when assessing whetever one ought to make a certain decision or not, on what basis should one pick one over the other? — HereToDisscuss

I think I explained at the beginning as to how the decisions prior to birth would be different than after birth. Prior to birth, all instances of harm can be prevented without any force whatsoever. After birth, considerations of force and non-aggression must be employed as well. If people are not to be used in agendas (as is the case of birth), then to be consistent here, people once born, cannot be used in agendas (like ceasing all harm and suffering). However, there is an instance where all suffering can be prevented without using individuals as agendas, and that is birth.

Well, is preventing desires and wills really a bad thing compared to letting suffering go on? The problem is, these desires and wills lead to more suffering (almost every single one of them, i would say) and, more importantly, they also lead to new individuals that will definitely suffer being born. If you end the human race, you will also prevent the suffering of these new people who will be "forced into existence" and it is justified as a result-and i am ignoring the fact other living beings, aside from humans, can experience pain and suffer too. I would argue that this means that if you have the power to destroy all life on planet Earth and you choose to not do it, you are indirectly responsible for the suffering of those individuals and other living beings who will be born. In that case, is not preventing desires and wills of living individuals really better when not doing that means more people (and other living beings who will experience pain) will suffer? That does not seem to be the case for me, especially when one considers how many animals also get forced into existence in a more cruel way-it is countless. (especially the ones we use as food, like chickens) — HereToDisscuss

So, if you pay attention to my arguments, I put a lot of weight on non-aggression. Once born, people have their own autonomous identity as individuals and should be respected. Thus the principle of non-harm is contradicted here with the principle of non-aggression. Thus, this ethic would not be one of some Lex Luther villain, purely contemplating calculations of loss and harm. People as individuals are taken into account. Thus, as I have always advocated, the only means by which an antinatalist can further their cause is through argumentation and convincing of the individual. That is it.

In the spirit of pragmatism and wisdom it behooves us to tackle any problem, yours/this included, in the best way possible. For that we must give some weightage to positive ethics. After all we're, hopefully, not in hell, tormented in such manner that makes the desire for pain relief so urgent that it makes positive ethics moot. I don't mean to make light of the real and horrible suffering some have undergone but to consider this as a problem for all is a hasty generalization. — TheMadFool

I refer you to my last post as it is basically the response to this notion that positive ethics is required as default for other people to follow.

False dichotomy. "Positive and negative" entail each other. Like coin faces. Like mass-gravity. Like yin-yang. Etc ...

Besides, double negation yields positivity: 'negation of suffering' is caring for 'well-being' of a sufferer. So I reject the premise of the OP. To wit: claiming, or assuming, that there are two types of ethics, practiced separately or "mixed", begs for Occam's Razor; rather, in effect, ethics has (at least) two aspects (i.e. foci): indirect self-care (1. positive - 'actualizes' (i.e. optimizes) self - which is also suffers - as a moral agent) via direct care of sufferers (2. negative - helps eliminate hindrances to well being).

Perhaps this 'dual-aspect' concept is more apparent with
agent-based systems (e.g. here's mine (sketched)) than with (mere) rule-based, act-based or preference-base systems. — 180 Proof

I think we are actually somewhat near the same page on this. There is an aspect of being used in procreation. People are born for an X reason (that is third-party that is not the agent that is actually being affected by the decision). Preventing birth is respecting the dignity of preventing any future suffering and not forcing a situation onto someone. At the procreational decision, we uniquely have the ability to not force agendas and to prevent all suffering. Once born, agendas and suffering ensue. We can cope for sure with whatever flavor you want, buy into whatever rhetoric, but the basic agenda of life, and the more refined agenda of society, and the agenda of pursuing this or that ensues along with unknown quantities of undue harm and collateral damage. Why, we don't ask, we just assume and foist, assume and foist. What's good for the goose (me) is good for the gander (other people), right? Blah, that's not respecting shit for anybody. It's the ultimate hubris of "I know what's best for everyone". Yet, I get accused of it most. The gumption :).

The idea that we should uphold some principle that only exists to avoid suffering (If it does not, why even have it? It can not be a morally good principle then.) when all it does is allowing for more suffering sounds counter-intuitive to me. — HereToDisscuss

Once born, the principle of forcing the end of others to prevent suffering, does not hold up for reasons @darthbarracuda was getting at. That is to say, once born, the rules of the intra-worldly affairs hold sway. That is, there are people with their own wills and goals. Prior to birth, there was an asymmetry of preventing pain (which is absolutely good even if no one to realize no suffering), and relative good (preventing good only matters if an actual person is around). Now, preventing someone's desires, wills, and negating that DOES come into play once born. Thus not only the prevention of harm, but the principle of respecting that a person exists with desires, etc. comes into play. Notice it is STILL a negative ethic.. Prevent suffering when you can, but prevent aggression as well. Prior to birth, no force at all takes place upon someone else (unlike the procreation scenario), AND no suffering will be caused (unlike the procreation scenario). Indeed, preventing suffering is always good. Once existing, ending lives, even to prevent harm to them later on, is like making humans who will suffer so they can benefit from it later on.. The non-aggression principle is being violated in both scenarios, and it is using people as an agenda in both scenarios.

Positive ethics is intra-worldly, i.e. how to live.

Negative ethics is prior to the world, i.e. whether or not one should live.

Once a person exists, they have interests which include having positive experiences.

Before a person exists, they have no interest in having positive experiences.

Metaphor: once noodles are boiled, the noodles cannot become rigid again. They also taste better with spice. — darthbarracuda

Good points. Your implication is that prior to birth, negative ethics always takes precedence. That is create no harm, force no harm. However, I would argue, even after existence we have negative principles such as non-aggression and non-harm. It is the fact that it is unavoidable to completely bypass these in the mirky intra-wordly affairs that is the point. For example, in almost all realms, non-aggression and non-harm are at least seen as ideals towards others. By aggression, I don't mean like the aggression of playing a game or sports (though that does bring actual harm sometimes), but aggression as in physically forcing someone into a viewpoint that the aggressor decides is good for them. It cannot be avoided but it is usual a typical standard, that ironically does not get applied to procreation, the exact time when all harm and force can be prevented.

Regardless of an individual’s goals, wants, desires, etc, the belief that any action is fully determined by a singular will is false - hubris, even. Just because only human will is aware of itself, does not mean it’s the only will involved in determining action. I’m not referring to any ether, and I’m not suggesting the parents aren’t creating the new human, only that they aren’t acting in isolation. They’re collaborating with cause and effect. — Possibility

You'd have to really explain that one. Sure, society feeds into individuals that feeds into society. At the end of the day, the one to pull the trigger is the proximal cause, which is the direct action of the two individuals that create the humans (or some other method used).

What we can’t stop is every instance of collaboration, every instance of procreation - that would be thinking we can ‘force’ our will onto others. — Possibility

Correct, we cannot nor should not force our wills, but we can convince with dialogue that is not stepping in the territory of force or aggression.

Your non-aggression principle is followed either by ‘force’ OR by increasing awareness, connection and collaboration, period. — Possibility

I'm not sure we agree or not, but I'll take it we agree.. don't procreate but don't force that idea only promote dialogue where acceptable. I take that to be what you are saying.

I think the assumption of a “negative ethics” is the problem to begin with, because “not bringing about negative experiences” seems to me to be the same as doing nothing. One cannot show ethical conduct towards beings that do not exist, so it turns out negative ethics is more an exercise in self-serving than an ethical stance. — NOS4A2

As long as you think that someone who could have suffered does not suffer is a good thing, it would indeed be ethical. The absolute is that it is good not to suffer. The relative is that not having positive/good experiences only matters if there is some actual person to be deprived of that positive/good.

If Antinatalism is ethical, why not genocide or mass sterilisation? Come to think of it, in order to really eliminate pain and suffering, (important distinctions which I'll get to in a moment) doesn't the problem demand a universe ending solution? Is that not a little too demanding of a principle for our small little species to have? — Mark Dennis

Nah, I couple the prevent harm principle almost always with non-aggression principle. You should not force anyone into your perspective. In fact that is one of the main reasons for antinatalism in the first place.

Suffering however, that is letting the abstract self via esteem or ego be harmed is entirely within ones own control. You can just not put your sense of self value on such shaky pedestals that bodily pain has any bearing on them. You dont have control of your body, it's out of your control. Bacteria doesn't ask our permission to make us sick its just trying to live itself. You can make choices which contribute towards positive outcomes but the outcomes themselves are mostly out of your control. You can be healthy as a horse and still fall and break your leg. — Mark Dennis

I'm getting mixed messages here.. You acknowledge collateral damage- the undue suffering (you refer to as pain) of individuals from being born. You also think that there are things in our control like making pain worse than it is or whatnot. In other threads I talk about how forcing someone into a game, EVEN if it is "character-building" (in this case, overcoming the temptation to fester on pain), is forcing a game on someone, period. Having a life, means people have to deal with overcoming negative challenges (like succumbing to suffering, if your theory is correct that one succumbs and never just "is" suffering).

The key thing to remember is that humans are getting better at reducing pain inducing environments. — Mark Dennis

As I've said previously, the higher we go up Maslow's hierarchy, the more the pain just gets "refined", it never actually goes away. Even thinking it can be eliminated would still be using the current non-eliminated beings as a way to get to a generation without suffering (which may not exist at all). To say that suffering is good for people because they can overcome it, still turns suffering into a good thing (like Nietzsche's beyond Good and Evil), and tries to subvert the idea that suffering is negative in order to justify inflicting it on others (in the first place) just so they can feel better by overcoming it.

Can I ask you something which I feel is very important? How teachable is Antinatalism to a child? How would a child feel if they were told that having children is the worst thing a person could do? Pretty sure the reaction would not be a good one. — Mark Dennis

I probably wouldn't introduce it so starkly to a child like that.

You seem to know a lot about your ethical principles, but what about your metaethical ones? — Mark Dennis

They can be construed as partly deontological (don't use people for agendas, don't violate certain principles of force and harm) and partly based on consequences of suffering. They rely a lot on axioms of asymmetry of non-existence and its relation to pain. They are also simply existential.. Suffering is not just brute and utilitarian. There is an aspect of desire and will itself which has aspects of suffering due to being deprived, etc. This is a deprivationalist view similar to Schopenhauer.

I don't understand what you think you're going to get out of keeping on hammering this. — Isaac

So discourse on ethical principles to me is like discourse on politics. In politics, there are people with very inbuilt beliefs that are hard to dislodge with even the best of arguments. However, it does not mean we must give up trying to maintain the dialogue. Same goes for this discourse on ethics and antinatalism. It is a discourse that despite the seeming intractable nature of differences, can still find some understanding and at least get something from hearing the other side, even if there is no compromise. Perhaps my arguments give someone just a bit of pause when thinking about they "why". Perhaps my arguments get more perspectives to consider, even just to strengthen it in the end.

Imagine a bucket with a hole. Yes the hole (suffering) must be adequately sealed (negative ethics) but the goal actually is to fill the bucket (positive ethics). — TheMadFool

If we both agree that more refined suffering exists at higher levels (along with the "fulfillment"), why would the fulfillment matter in the face of at least some negative experience? In other words, what about "fulfillment" overrides the two principles of non-aggression and non-harm? Why should this grand agenda be enough justification to override the negative ethics? Certainly no one needs fulfillment prior to birth. You must violate the principles of non-harm, non-aggression to another person, in order to create these chances for fulfillment. Why does thinking something is good for someone else count as being a reason to violate these negative ethical principles?

Apart from the unnecessary word -"violation", which has negative connations and can just be replaced by something like "trade off"-, this is exactly what people who claim that positive things have intrinsic value say. I'm not sure what your point is. — HereToDisscuss

I'm saying why should this trade off be considered justifiable on behalf of someone else? What makes the trade off more important than the original state of non-being (and non-suffering) to begin with?

These two things make is so that we are inclined to do the best thing for our species and the species may actually function properly as a result.
This is probably oversimplified, so there are most likely some errors. Howewer, the point is, there is no reason to treat them very seperately-they exist for the same thing (the betterment of society), they just work differently. — HereToDisscuss

So the species work properly and betterment of society are the two positive ethics I see here (an example of X that I proposed for whatever positive ethics one proposes). Why do we need people born to better society and the species to work properly? I guess, a) Why prima facie does this matter? b) Why would forcing existence on someone who will definitely suffer be justified for this? In other words, why would the two negative ethical principles of non-aggression (non-forcing) and non-harming be violated on behalf of this grand agenda of species and society?

Of course you don't, because the 'goodness' of a reason is subjective. You think other people's reasons are not 'good', they think they are 'good'. Unless you have a definition of 'good' on which you both agree, no further progress can possibly be made can it... And yet you persist. — Isaac

I agree it is all about agreeing about first principles. I will keep trying to convince on this front. At the very least, by NOT having children, my first principles brings about no collateral damage, no suffering onto a new person. I am not forcing an agenda to live out the options of our reality. I do not have to prove much. I harmed no one, and forced no one. I see the onus on the otherside as to why bringing about conditions of harm, and forcing these conditions with collateral damage is necessary. That is the difference here in our current deadlock.

While not completely true, negative ethics is a thing of the past for a good number of modern humans. They're now in the self-actualization business. Much like you are and others who pursue the arts and sciences. At a very minimum the world now has the environment for positive ethics. Of course, even taking only a wild guess, the vast majority live in conditions that validate your claim for emphasis on negative ethics. Yet, the dark ominous cloud does have that thin silver lining where some are lucky to reside. — TheMadFool

I see a lot of assumptions that suffering is only about third world problems. I see it much deeper than that. You yourself were trying to explain how as you go higher in the hierarchy (if we are to buy into the model), more refined forms of negative experience await you. You don't automatically become the happiest person ever, the situations which bring about negative experiences, the milieu changes. One can argue it is even worse than before if we don't look at negative experiences as pure crass survival or lifespan, etc. Think of the hedonic treadmill, etc.

We have only so many options. We didn't have the option for no options. Why not? What is it about these options that we need to live out?

Again, just imagine an answer "what should be important to all humans is the opportunity to find happiness". What's wrong with that answer? — Isaac

If it means physically bringing another human into existence, it would violate non-aggression principle (don't force things for any reason, including "finding the opportunity to pursue happiness"). It assumes people pursuing happiness is more important than not bringing about conditions of negative experiences upon another person (which does happen in the "mixed bag"). Why the violation of non-aggression and why the violation of creating conditions of negative experiences in the first place for another person must be followed, does not seem to compute.

Rather, if no one is born, no one suffers. No one is forced into anything. No one is around to be deprived of happiness. Those are my reasons, but I see no good ones on the other side. I suggested one jokingly, that we all get a spiritual dog biscuit because we "pursued our happiness". That is to say, there is no real good excuse to do this in regards to making other people.

This is the crux of the problem. Nothing at the level of rhetoric, where we now are, is important 'to humans'. Some things are important to some humans, other things are important to other humans, and there's no external judge to determine who's right and who's wrong about that. — Isaac

But in the realm of procreation, we certainly are making those decisions for others and then letting them "decide" with suicide :chin: . That is suspect, so there is something to be said as to what should be important for all humans, being that we are all born for "some" reason (i.e. positive ethics).

And isn't 'persuing what I prefer' an end... the only end, in fact? — Isaac

You tell me. Is pursuing X more important than preventing negative experience? This really comes to a head in the realm of procreation. Why are we making more people in the first place?

At some point in asking why people prefer the things they do, you have to defer to either their final say on the matter (usually "I don't know, I just do"), or you look to empirical evidence you see as correlating with unconscious desires (say sociology or human biology). Asking people is never going to get you further back than their own first principles, which could be almost anything. — Isaac

Granted. Again, this is more about creating new people. But certainly, they have SOME answer (not usually a good one) as to why X, Y, Z has to happen by bringing a new person into the world. They MUST accomplish X, Y, Z.. And being that you and I and everyone is a product of this kind of thinking, it is extremely relevant to existential matters of why anything.

Or, is pessimism actually a rational, logical, intelligent, and realistic thought? — niki wonoto

Being a thoroughgoing philosophical pessimist, I will say that it is all of the things you mentioned. There is a structural suffering behind human experience, it isn't proven that any positive ethic should be placed above and beyond prevention of suffering, non-existence never hurt anyone (literally), we are not on a mission to experience X (put your positive goal here), often the positive reasons for procreation are thwarted by the collateral damage of much negative experience, people often don't process pain after-the-fact in a way that properly reports it to themselves or others (the Pollyanna principle), procreation is not an exception to the principle of non-aggression, people are often used for an agenda of individuals and society in the form of labor and consumption. Given all of this, indeed there is no reason NOT to be a philosophical pessimist, naturally :grin:.