I think it generally contradictory that most people generally agree about non-aggression about property, rights, physical violence, and otherwise, but not about procreation. I am stating that this action also follows under the non-aggression principle, like any other. Procreation is not an exception because the parent has a notion of an agenda that needs to be followed (in your case "maintaining society").

For children who have had a healthy upbringing life is generally a positive experience. I'd consider that enough reason to put the "Procreation is bad. Period." argument on hold. The question should be whether everybody, including those people who are incapable of providing a healthy upbringing for a child, should be having children. — Tzeentch

Healthy upbringing, happiness, or otherwise, why does that trump non-aggression?

I do not understand this. Is the argument that people experience happiness when alive and it is a good thing, so we should procreate? If so, it is as good as the argument that existence has harm and we should steer away from harm at all costs, so we should not procreate-not that good.
Also, why should we adopt the non-agression principle? I believe that the answer to this question can help us understand whetever reasons for procreating justify violating it are good or not. — HereToDisscuss

So we have two ideas here: non-aggression principle, pursuit of happiness.

In this variation of it, I would identify non-aggression as not imposing one's views on others through force. I'd like to acknowledge and then set aside the idea that in this view, self-defense and preventative defense is justifiable as it is defending against an initial force or threat-to-force.

It can also be argued that having children is a forced outcome. The parent views that another being should be born and experience the world because they feel it is good or necessary, and thus they procreate (this is "forcing" the child). Let us also acknowledge that the "force" is making the events possible for the person to be born. Thus, even though there is no actual person existing before X time, at some X time, when the child exists, it is indeed brought about through the actions of the parents, which is where the "force" has taken place. Thus any arguments saying there was no child before X time to be forced are specious and red-herring arguments, as the X time when the child actually exists IS the time when force has taken place. Nothing more or less is needed there to demonstrate that.

When interviewing parents as to possible reasons for having kids (outside accidental births), inevitably a pattern emerges whereby some idea of "happiness" or "flourishing" emerges (maybe not said in exactly those terms, but amounts to similar concept).

Thus the parent may indeed go about life believing in the non-aggression principle in regards to property, physical autonomy, and freedom of speech. However, in the case or procreation, this is never linked as also following under this purview of non-aggression. Birth is seen as an exception to non-aggression (i.e. not forcing physically or otherwise) on someone. Further, if this was ever presented as just another case of aggression and force onto someone, they wold make the pivot to some version of the happiness principle. People "need" to be born to pursue their happiness. This overrides (is a post facto-excuse) any non-aggression principle that they may otherwise have. Thus the pursuit of happiness idea acts as sort of way to dissolve the tricky problem of aggressively forcing (literally everything about life) onto another person.

So, why should we adapt the non-aggression principle? Why should people be forced into anything at all? That is the heart of the matter. There is an agenda taking place, and this agenda is literally forced onto the next generation. Why should the person be forced into this agenda, be it happiness principle or otherwise? Let me ask you this, if happiness is the goal, are parents then messianic "deliverers" of happiness by having children? Are they on some sort of mission whereby individuals are beholden to follow? This may sound odd, but that is the logical conclusion of such thinking- even if the person presenting it has not thought it all the way through.

More precisely to your point, how does being born have to do with your parents at all? — Valentinus

How does being born not have to do with your parents?

I think taking the species point of view as a means of averting disaster has a better chance of being developed than convincing particular people they want stupid things. — Valentinus

That's not the antinatalist argument. Rather it is that existence has harm and by introducing new people, you ar e creating new experiences of harm. Also, you are essentially force recruiting people into existence based on an agenda set by the parent (their particular reason for putting a new person into the world). As stated in this thread, politically speaking,this is the first act of aggression, thus violating the non-aggression of not forcing views.

— schopenhauer1

Aside from the fact that it's not stealing if the person is given consent to take the property, it's the height of moralizing in the negative sense (the sense of haughtily, self-righteously telling people what they should be doing) to say that something is a problem when the people involved in the action in question don't have a problem with it. — Terrapin Station

The person didn't know beforehand. The person happens to not mind the stealing. I still say that action is wrong. It's the height of arrogance to assume everyone wants to be stolen from (in this particular analogy). This is also rife with ad populum fallacy. A whole society agrees it is okay to steal. and murder (think of the Spartans or even slaveowners).. does that make it right? Maybe some slaves don't mind their lot as slaves. Maybe some Helots were okay with the arrangement...

You don't talk much about Nietzsche; but, he expounded on this to great lengths. — Wallows

Any quotes? I think you might be relating this to his idea of beyond good and evil and eternal return.

Then you can tell them to feck off. They're misguided, like some religious fanatics that want to live forever in some paradise. — Wallows

Correct. They are misguided as they are using "the pursuit of happiness" as an excuse to justify violating the non-aggression principle (not forcing others). It is the ultimate "get out of free card" because somehow the connotation of the emotion/state-of-being of happiness makes people fee warm and fuzzy and therefore must be automatically a good justification.

And, we can both agree that such people are stupid and will suffer, so why use them as a template against the very notion of existence, which goes way beyond the notion of "happiness"? — Wallows

I'm using them not as a template against the very notion of existence, but as an example of how people will justify forcing someone (violating the non-aggression rule) by simply throwing out "but pursuit of happiness!!". Somehow it is a "get out of jail free" card. As long as you say that they NOW get to pursue their happiness by being born, the whole "forcing the other person" thing gets to be swept under the carpet.

Non-sequitur, really. Happiness isn't the ultimate goal of life, and thinking so would cause the very misery you are propounding against existence... — Wallows

I agree, but this does not stop people from thinking that "pursuing happiness" is a principle people should be forced into pursuing by procreation. You see, even though procreation is an aggressive forcing of someone into life (because of any X reason such as "they should pursue happiness"), people think pursuing happiness trumps the aggressive forcing into life thing.

Indeed, I think procreation violates a principle of non-aggression. Oddly, borrowing from the political discourse of the libertarian right (non-aggression principle), by procreating a person, you are aggressively forcing your view (LITERALLY!) on someone else. All first principles of politics come from being born in the first place. The first act whereby a person is being used by another entity, is being born at all in the first place. To justify that this is OKAY because people generally want to pursue their happiness once the aggression is enacted, seems to be a post-facto excuse to enact the aggression in the first place. It is also oddly making autonomous individuals beholden to a principle- that of pursuing happiness. This seems oddly authoritarian, whether in the name of "happiness", or any other principle. Just because "happiness" is warm and fuzzy sounding doesn't mean people should be aggressively forced into pursuing it (by being born at all). It seems odd, but it does make sense.

So what makes happiness an automatic justification for someone is that that's their disposition. It's how they feel about happiness versus other emotional (or situational) modalities. — Terrapin Station

Yes, but this argument will come to a standstill based on first principles. From what I remember, you don't have any prescriptive ethics. So, if someone was to steal someone's property and find out that they were happy about this later on, you would be ok with the fact that the thief stole someone else's property. At the same token, if someone stole from another person and if the person whose property was stolen felt violated and angry, that would not be ok. This does not seem to add up, something was still violated in both cases.

Really good post, Baden! We need more instructive posts like this as a good model. I do have one objection though when applying it to philosophical musings and arguments. This style of essay (which is basically an elaborated expository essay which tries to explain using points of data that can be obtained in empirical research) relies heavily on the "evidence" portion which at its base is academically researched empirical studies (experiments, observations, statistics, studies, etc.). A lot of philosophical ideas are a priori, and aren't amenable to this form of empirical evidence. It is purely relying on axiomatic ideas, first principles, value, etc. Indeed some of this can be gathered from sociological/psychological studies if one is trying to prove a specific application in those realms, but other ideas are not so amenable (inherently) to empirical studies. Whether mental states are ultimately primary, for example, can be informed by neuroscience and psychology, but ultimately that evidence would still be a category error if applied to metaphysical claims (i.e. the Hard Problem of Consciousness) as opposed to verification claims based on scientific methodology.

Thus, sometimes the "evidence" portion in philosophical debates is really just more detailed reasoning.

Is physical health the only standard to judge weather to procreate? I know that's the knee jerk response and popular opinion, but 0erhaps there are more subtle reasons and arguments to be made why it is indeed never good.

If we are social creatures, it's about propaganda.

Is this question for me?

Was this for me? Anyways, suffering won't be an issue for the non-born. Also, no person would exist in this scenario to even be deprived. Win/win. Life is about daily dealings. Suffering is suffering. It just climbs the hierarchy of needs to more refined less physical versions of it. Not sure why quiet desperation or more psychological suffering matters less.

Yes, but I'd go further and say procreation is always bad no matter what socioeconomic circumstance. Something is not always or even ever better than nothing. Life being worth it only matters once born because humans need existential direction to cope and be. However, for those who never existed, this of course doesn't matter. It's not an issue. There are no issues in that scenario. Somehow parents feel they are the arbiters of worth. People need to be brought into the world so they can "appreciate" it's worth. But as I just stated, worth is something contrived after the fact to cope with our own beingness. It's a poor man that rides on top of the prior decision made on behalf of the person affected by being born at all.

If we are to debate philosophically, the OP is about whether it is good to bring new people into the world. Why is human life assumed to be good enough to make another person to live through it? What's wrong with no one experiencing anything at all? There are no downsides, or sides at all to never being born.

Procreation is a choice. It's not inevitable. People can choose to discontinue birth.

Yes this is very much something I would say and agree with, which is why I ask. That shouldn't be a surprise though.

Please explain..

Love and greed and charity and art appreciation etc. are needs that last entered the specimens' needs in the evolution of the species. The lack of their fulfilment is not felt; their fulfilment brings joy; they don't kill you if you never experience them. — god must be atheist

Then what are they? How do you justify that it is "natural" and not just a cultural or personal preference?

I don’t see why animal survival instincts should be considered more strongly natural, unless we are restricted to the realm of biology. The philosophical notion of “natural” would probably include all psychology, but I think you are right in excluding contingent social norms. — Congau

So this is a good point. I think category 3 in the OP is equivalent to psychologically abstract preferences (like beauty, accomplishment, friendship, etc.). But it is precisely the blurriness between contingent social norms and psychology that this category can be a hodge-podge for making anything "natural". This category can be subverted for any purpose to say that any biased preference is "natural", including procreation. Thus, how do you decide what indeed crosses the boundary into personal preference?

I continually find it fascinating that we refer to ‘natural’ or ‘instinctual’ preferences for our species, one of whose most distinctive characteristics is our individual capacity to completely restructure preferences... — Possibility

Yes this is very much a key part of my point. Even something as "natural-seeming" as procreation may be just culturally-derived but individually chosen preferences.

The terms are not ideal, but the best way to make sense out of this distinction is that "natural" preferences are not about cultural artifacts. They're rooted purely in biological facts, in genetics, and they're preferences that members of a species tend to have--they're very common in that species. — Terrapin Station

Yes, this is like what Isaac said. "Typical" in that species can be rife with social cues that are not genetic in origin, but socially learned, but so ingrained as to appear genetic. So indeed they could be ust cultural artifacts.

A preference is 'natural' if it is one displayed by the species acting in a typical manner. All your other definitions are some form of 'necessary' which is not the same as 'natural'. — Isaac

So this is close to the hard-to-define 3 that I was examining. I think definitions like this are hard to pinpoint to "typical manner". How does one distinguish what is truly natural and what is simply socially encouraged (and then enculturated to the point of being a truism)? So there are more clear cut examples from this category like language, for example. Without it, the human species appears to not be the human species, so I can accept that. But beyond a few key ones, much of it could be social enculturation and not "natural" anything. Simply socially learned things that are "preferred" by the individual when they take on those values.

It's a matter of right epistemic judgment on what is mean. I dont see causing undue pain as necessary.

Why is the aggressor wrong for being mean if no one should be upset at what the aggressor is doing? — Terrapin Station

Intent

when the problem lies with seeing the behavior as mean. — Terrapin Station

Again, trying to be mean to someone isn't the "fault" of the person its targeted to. There can be mutually exclusive things going on a) the aggressor is wrong for being mean b) the target should try to grow a thick skin.

Your thought-process is making more sense in general though in your behavior.

No. I was saying that there are fears that are intense and persistent but not rational, so we try to fix the fact that people have them rather than moderating the external stuff that triggered the fear. — Terrapin Station

No I get what you were saying, but I was saying earlier that helping someone "protect" against perceived meanness, doesn't exempt the mean person for trying to be mean. Again, "mean" here is more about intensity, context, duration, intent, etc.

But this 'unmanifested' is only coherent if one views their existence as if a separate self/ego, brought from the ultimate peace into manifestation, somehow, because their parents had sex - and it is to this 'state' that one will return to at death. But this strikes me as almost delusional - the world appears monist to me - 'unmanifestation', 'unborn', 'absence of being' - are just incoherent ideas, no? There is just a world/being - no separate selves that blip into it and out of it. It's as if the thought train is, "the ultimate peace is the absence of my existence in this world", but in reality there is no separate "you" from the world to take leave, in my opinion. This is not an argument against antinatalism, though. — Inyenzi

I see what you are saying. This has more to do with what is consciousness? If a consciousness does not have the physical components to manifest a consciousness, wouldn't there be an absence of consciousness? But I can also see how this is a point of view question. What is the point of view of a "self" in a world that has any consciousness? I would still say that procreation increases the POVs to yet another individual to bear the burden of living. Not procreating prevents another individual from this. That is to say, potentially a person has to experience, but that potential is not being actualized as someone who will experience. The potential is there, but not the actuality. The people who already exist will still have to endure, and it doesn't negate their suffering. Thus, antinatalism is always about preventing another, but not as much about what to do with the already-existent. The already-existent can come together communally and discuss the implications of antinatalism- the conditions of existence which make it so future people should not exist. Maybe this will at least bring about some sort of empathy, etc.

You suggested intensity and persistence as criteria. — Terrapin Station

So are you bringing up epistemic arguments that since there is no arbiter of how intense or persistent the mean person is actually being, it becomes useless to try to figure it out?

I would also direct you to my last comment.

Well, people can have really intense fears of trees, and that fear is probably going to be persistent, but what needs to be worked on there is what's going on with the person psychologically. The aim is to try to alleviate if not cure what's seen as an irrational reaction. — Terrapin Station

Yes, this would be a straw man. Because some people overreact all mean acts are exempt? That just sounds fishy. Rather, a more reasonable line of thinking is people from an early age should be taught to take any mean action with a grain of salt, ignore, get away, keep in mind what NOT to do, etc. However, the mean person is at fault here for trying to inflict some sort of pain on someone. They don't get a pass just because people should be taught to ignore mean people as much as possible. As I was saying, it depends on several things, so it is a situation by situation thing- things like intent, duration, intensity, context, place, etc. Also, as I stated, not everything is as easy as "Target can move away from Aggressor". Life isn't that simple sometimes.

Also, you are subtly moving the argument from morality to speech. I never said mean speech should be banned. It is more about the descriptor of that speech, not any legal status of it, or whether it should be allowed or not. Mean speech is still free speech in my opinion, but we are not evaluating that dimension of it in this argument. I do think a forum owned/run by administrators, just like other private establishments can choose to have standards they want to keep though, but if we are talking public acts, etc. yeah free speech, but not the issue.

What do you think here?

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/339794

So a couple things:
1) When is a republican democracy (or any lip service to that) considered completely dead?

a) When a president can ask for dirt on a political candidate from a foreign country?
b) When a president can cover this up in classified servers?
c) When a president can openly say it in media interviews?
d) When a president refuses to allow key witnesses to testify to Congress?

2) What SHOULD this impeachment hinge on (if political party wasn't a factor)?

a) Proof of intent of inquiry into Bidens?
b) Quid-pro-quo?
c) Asking foreign country for information on Bidens' affairs in Ukraine?
d) Something else

@Bitter Crank

Re I said basis but not the whole story. Also mentioned duration and intensity.

Re the other part, I'm just explaining that R considering y "harm" isn't sufficient for me to think there's any moral problem with x. And neither is that S intended to produce y in R. Offensive speech is an example of that. — Terrapin Station

I find it unfortunate when harm is intended towards people, and undesirable. I tend to think that harm is a basis for morality. We cannot help but harm others though, so my view trends towards existential harm that's already done by being born. We are bound to harm each other by merely being born in everyday intra-worldly affairs. However, "polluting the waters" constantly makes for a very irritating existence, and thus, done consistently and with high aggressive capacity, contributes to such a negative state for some people, that I do believe it can fall under immoral, but only when crossing thresholds of certain intensities and duration. I can't give you a specific though of what that would be. Again, even if someone can get away, it really also depends on the motive and character of the aggressor here. In some degree it depends on the act itself, and not just intention. There are things which are harder to get away from- family, work, etc. so often it is not as easy. Sometimes it is a conflict of various social levels that you may not be accounting for. Human existence is more nuanced then "Person A can get away from person B hypothetically".

The study of people is the only true science. — Sunnyside

This goes along with that

Mathematics is an abstraction of reality. — Sunnyside

I believe that these two sentiments taken together can be construed as saying that man is the measure of things. It has wafts of Kant. But it could also be about importance of understanding humans above all else. My most asked question is why people procreate more people, especially if there is suffering? Most people will throw out happiness or something like that. But it's the most important question- more important than suicide. Procreation is about why continue life in general whereas suicide is about why continue your life only.

Aphorisms lie in the heart of philosophy. — Sunnyside

I find some of the most informative philosophical statements to be aphorisms (pace Schopenhauer and E.M. Cioran).

A long, healthy life is considered desirable, good. But what if it were possible to prove someone protected from the needless restlessness/stress and complexity of socioeconomic demands lived the longer and healthier than those who take such demands head on? Wouldn't this be support for an argument a life based on impossibility (say that we've all gotten used to having an exchange value or that a qualitative life can be translated to numbers...egregore) is associated with poor physical and/or mental health? Diseases of affluence aren't the contagious kind, they arise from choice to follow an collective belief or lifestyle/egregore that sends them spells of heart disease and cancer. Yet the same people are scared to death of communicable diseases. What is it that makes this egregore so ingrained people accept diseases collateral to the requisite for valuing profit motive and upward mobility? — Anthony

But I don't think any life is free of unavoidable conditions. What if just surviving in general is bad, in ANY manner- Robinson Crusoe, advanced post-industrial economies, any of them? What if the desire for more living (procreation) itself is the egregore?