Do I aspire to do what is moral, or to simply indulge my base instincts to breed like every other mammal? What kind of person do I want to be, and what kind of self-discipline is required to achieve it? — Inyenzi

At least we're admitting that this is about self-image. But one might wonder whether the wish to not have to deal with life at all is really a sign of superior self-discipline.

It doesn't matter what we think, it is the mode of existing as a human being embodied in the world. You don't have to make a judgement as you are being deprived. You are just deprived. — schopenhauer1

I think this is avoiding the question. Clearly "deprived" isn't the name of a fundamental force in the universe. Whether one sees all existence as deprivation, or sees individual cases of deprivation that can be solved is a question of perspective.

Again.. way too many words for something you probably knew. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, likewise. The arguments have been done to death. The problems with your arguments are very obvious to me, but you either cannot or do not want to see them.

It is simply asking not to create this deprivation or deprivation-states. — schopenhauer1

But that's such a weird request. Deprivation is a human mental category. It's not a physical description but a value judgement. It's not your parents that think of all life as deprivation. It's you.

I should really qualify "affecting" as imposing and causing conditions of harm on another person. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, but then we're right back to square one. Affecting is a very broad term, which is why the claim that creating someone "affects" them is plausible. This is no longer the case when we use more concrete terms like imposing or causing conditions of harm. The whole causation argument has been done to death, as has the imposition one.

If you take away any contingent forms of contextual suffering (which is actually common enough to be structural anyways), this form of lack is always there churning away in the psyche, all the more compounded by self-awareness of this very situation that we lack. — schopenhauer1

As I have alluded to earlier, it seems, for lack of a better word, childish to respond to this by wishing to end self-awareness itself. Not that childish necessarily equals "bad", but the wish to avoid existence rests on magical thinking.

I can understand the apparent paradoxes here. We want to fulfill our desires, but fulfilling them only ever leads to more desire. We want to realize ourselves, but can only do so through others, which requires limiting ourselves.

These are, like all paradoxes, caused by modes of thinking, which can be rejected. But the anti-natalist solution seems to be to instead find the one who is responsible for the paradox, and ask them to fix it. Blaming your parents for something they did not do - indeed cannot do.

You created the very deficiency that eating solves, and call that good. Better to just not create the deficiency in the first place, to not create a body with a need for food. — Inyenzi

This seems to be an unwarranted value judgement, arbitrarily describing one physical process as a "deficiency". The kind of processes involved predate humans, and would still be around if humans were not.

Without reference to the important part - the mind - the argument can go nowhere.

How is it not? A decision was made. This affected the individual being born. The individual being born could not possibly be a part of the decision affecting him/her. — schopenhauer1

That's a description of the various parts of the sentence, it's not an argument. It doesn't tell me what is bad about affecting others if they haven't been part of the decision.

The violation occurs because a decision was made affecting someone else, even if the affect for the person is displaced from the time the decision was made and there was no person there previously. — schopenhauer1

But this again only tells me that affecting others is a violation, not why this is so. It's not obvious why any influence I have on anyone should be considered a violation.

If there is a state of affairs that a person is born, there is a person affected by someone else's decision. However, if there is a state of affairs with no person born, then there is a state of affairs where no person was affected by the decision, thus no violation, and no new individual who suffers will take place. All of this is encompassed with colloquial terms like "potential child" etc. — schopenhauer1

Sure, all you'd need to argue now is that being affected by this decision is equivalent to a violation.

Displacement of when decision is made to when person is affected doesn't negate that a decision was made that affects a person. — schopenhauer1

Shifting the problem so we now have a decision that is both made (becasue a person exists, which can only happen as a result of said decision) and not made (because we act as if we can still prevent that person from ever existing, which we can only do before the decision) doesn't help.

The core problem remains that all humans necessarily exist. There are no humans that do not exist, and thus there are no humans who do not have existence (and all it entails) "imposed" on them. This logical necessity cannot be changed by semantic games, displaced decisions etc.

And you keep doing it. — schopenhauer1

I keep reaffirming logic, yes. It's gaslighting only if your view is so muddled that it feels the need to undercut the principles of logic, like the principle of non-contradiction. Future persons cannot both exist and not exist at the same time, and yet you claim they do again and again.

You know a discussion is in a good place when the factions that have emerged stop engaging with the critical comments and instead reaffirm to each other how right they are in a big, happy circlejerk.

One can prevent all risk for a future person, period. — schopenhauer1

No, one cannot, period.

Well, then noone should get behind the wheel.

Clearly a parent gets to decide whether they want to create children. — Tzeentch

Yes. But that's not the same as deciding that those children want to live.

Indeed. They want a child and therefore they will create one. So what justification is there to make this decision despite being unable to foresee the consequences and being unable to verify in advance whether the child actually wants to experience life? — Tzeentch

The same justification there is for anything else that you do that has consequences you can't fully control (i.e. everything). There is nothing unusual about this, you do it when you drive your car to the store. What justification could you possibly have to drive to the store while being unable to foresee the consequences and unable to verify in advance whether anyone wants to take the risk of sharing the road today with you?

Indeed, the parent gets to decide. — Tzeentch

No, they don't. The parents don't go around thinking "my child wants to live, therefore I am going to create it". That's not a decision that actually happens.

How does one reconcile the fact that when making the decision to have a child, one does not know A: whether the child wants to live in the first place, and B: whether the child will have a good life, even by one's own standards (let alone those of the child)? — Tzeentch

By recognizing that:
A: Noone gets to decide whether they want to live in the first place, and wishing for this choice is fundamentally irrational. It can only really be understood as the faulty expression of another wish, such as the wish to decide how one wants to live.

B: There is no such thing as a good life. There are good acts, but these are possible for everyone. There is pain and suffering, and there is also joy and happyness. Neither of these things alone constitute "good" or "bad". They're states of affairs. A life filled with pleasure may be very desirable, but it is not by that token necessarily good.

Sounds to me like: "It is good to have children, but you don't have to". Even though you kept asking me why I distinguish between things that are good to do and things that you must do, you seem to be doing it. — khaled

I see where you're coming from. I am probably not expressing this very well. Essentially, what I want to say is that it's possible that you should have children, because there is a principle that allows for this possibility and is in line with freedom. And if you should have children, you should have children. There is no other result here, you either should or you should not.

But having children isn't the end here, and neither is having exactly one or two or three children. So it's possible you never end up in a situation where you should have children, and that is fine too. You don't have to go out and create a specific situation just so you can then have children.

This seems like a contradiction to me. One sentence you're saying "furthers free will" and the next you're saying "free will is not quantified". Wtf does "furthers free will" mean? — khaled

You're right, that wasn't the right wording. It should simply be "in accordance with freedom".

If you answered it, I must've missed it. — Tzeentch

Apparently you have.

I wasn’t clear that’s on me, but what I mean is that I don’t agree with his approach to antinatalism, but how can we deny that birthing people affects them ? — Albero

Why formulate the problem with the phrase "birthing people affects then, which is both imprecise on the part of the "affect" and vague as to who is meant?

Why not use the simple, common terms: having children creates children, and those in turn affect other people?

There is someone who who is going to be affected because you create a being into the world. This doesn’t necessarily lead to antinatalism but that’s not the point — Albero

Not just one someone. The person you create is going to affect a lot of people. But discussing this would be a vary different kind of discussion. It'd be about resource use, parenting, education etc.

we force humans into being? — Albero

That's a contradiction in terms. There are not any humans that are not, so you cannot force humans to be.

I don’t agree with Schopenhauer1 but what he’s saying is undeniable — Albero

This also seems to be an obvious contradiction.

I think this is an example of the problem, that people don't really realise the extent of other people problems despite paying lip service to them but when they have first person evidence they have to commit to real intervention. — Andrew4Handel

Maybe it's a question of social circles, but I know a lot of people who consider whether it's ethical to have children given e.g. climate change and the disproportionate amount of resources inhabitants of industrialised countries use.

Though I suppose you are also right in that a lot of people will still feel children are a necessary part of a full life and ultimately don't follow up on these worries. People do exhibit the same behaviour concerning other questionable behaviours as well, so I am not sure that's really a problem with having children, specifically.

All I know is that it raises questions I cannot answer, and, judging by the tone of our conversation, you cannot either. — Tzeentch

So far as I am aware, I have answered all your questions, at least.

What I have described is the way I look at the matter, at least. — Tzeentch

And isn't it great that the view you have actively argued and defended in this thread is the one "just asking the hard questions" that the other side just "cannot answer".

I just wonder who these theatrics are for? Presumably, the only people still reading are the 6 regular posters, and they won't be fooled by airy declarations of socratic ideals.

I don't think that's inherent to the position, but rather inherent to some individuals' desire to impose their views on others. That's a flaw in those individuals, and not in the position. — Tzeentch

See, I asked you earlier whether you tend towards an individualistic philosophy / worldview. Doesn't seem like my armchair psychoanalysis was that far off the mark.

The fact that I cannot find sufficient justification to force individuals to exist doesn't mean it is the same for others. — Tzeentch

So, to clarify, you don't think the anti-natalist position is true in an intersubjective sense, that it should convince people? You just like it for entirely personal reasons?

Views are not actors, but to follow the spirit of your comment I would say no.

I don't seek to create such a universe. I haven't seen anyone here expressing that they do.

As far as I have seen, the anti-natalist argument as shared in this thread consists of observations and questions to which there do not seem to be any good answers. Every individual can draw their own conclusions and make their own choices based on that. — Tzeentch

This strikes me as a pretty dishonest way of summarizing the thread. @schopenhauer1 in particular is one of the most offensively proselytizing users on this forum.

But yes, if every person on earth were to conclude at once that the questions and observations of the anti-natalist argument are sufficient reason not to have children, humanity would eventually cease to exist. If that is a result of people's voluntary choice not to have children, then what business is that of mine? — Tzeentch

It's weird that you make this question about you, personally. My "observation" is that an anti-natalist position, ulitmately seeks to end humanity. Whether or not it will persuade enough people to succeed is irrelevant.

I don't know what you are saying here. Are you saying parents don't have freewill or that consciousness can be created regardless of whether people reproduce? — Andrew4Handel

What I am saying is that it's not as if parents make a conscious decision to turn their children into subjects so that they can then suffer. It's simply that when humans reproduce, we also reproduce subjectivity.

The problem is the current lack of real effort to question the ethics and ramifications of having children. — Andrew4Handel

I am not sure where you get this from. I get the impression that this one of the areas where there is a lot of discussion.

What puzzled me is the person I was responding to did not seem to think a parent could cause a child any suffering simply by creating them. If you were going to create a child why not consider the suffering that already exists. Like I said in my initial posts we do this predicting the future all the time.

For example if you were going to a shop and someone said that there was an active shooter on the loose would you want to know this before you started out on your journey? — Andrew4Handel

Well, what puzzles me is why we're treating existence as a choice, which we might able to weigh according to the risks and benefits. It's not a choice. Treating it as one is, at best, wishful thinking and at worst evidence of some serious confusion.

I am concerned that most people do not seem to make the link between creating a child and the reason there is suffering and inequality etc. The first post I made on the Old Philosophy forums was about this. The only reason we do philosophy is because our parents created us and that is the reason we exist and why we asks all the questions we do and few people question why we were made to exist on the first place. — Andrew4Handel

But we weren't "made to exist". We're made to do a lot of things, but existing isn't one of them. In a sense, even parenty don't "create" new humans because however it is that we end up as conscious subjects, our parents certainly didn't control that process. They merely initiated it and perhaos gave their input.

Creating a new sentience (deliberately) is profound and has profound implications. (Compare this to being the first person to create a sentient robot) If you create the first sentient robot it would make international headlines and you would be considered a genius yet people are creating sentient beings everyday as if it was the product of a fast food chain. — Andrew4Handel

It would certainly be better if people considered whether they actually should have children more thoroughly in general, but it is also the case that no-one really knows beforehand whether the resulting life will be particularly happy or sad.

I was referring to the nature of the empirical evidence used in Antinatalism which distinguishes it from a purely theoretical or logical argument. — Andrew4Handel

I don't know, so far everyone has shied away from basing suffering on any empirical basis. The consensus of the antinatalists in this thread, so far, seems to be that suffering results from an imposition without consent, and that it is not necessary to list individual instances of suffering or quantify some overall value of suffering for a given life.

But you are right we are all in the building, which is what puzzles antinatalists. We point out past present and future suffering like the holocaust , world wars, slavery, cancer, depression and nuclear proliferation and damage to the environment, none of which is apparently enough to dissuade people from having children. — Andrew4Handel

To me, this is merely evidence (insofar as one can apply the principle to philosophy) that suffering is an insufficient basis for a moral philosophy. Despite assertions to the contrary, people don't seem to act as if avoiding suffering was actually their overriding concern.

And since, as you pointed out, suffering is can hardly be avoided, perhaps that is an entirely rational thing to do.

So, regarding this:

There are lots more examples if you need them." — Andrew4Handel

What's the point of listing all the negative aspects of life, apart from trying to eliminate or ameliorate them? It's not as if we have an option to not be born. That choice is entirely imaginary. It's almost like imagining that one might not have been born is an escapist fantasy.

I can't say I don't appreciate a little armchair psychology, but this makes little sense. — Tzeentch

Well, is it accurate in your case? Do you place a strong emphasis on the individual, as per e.g. classical liberalism?

The anti-natalist viewpoint as I have seen it expressed in this thread is based on A: the idea that voluntariness and consensuality form the basis for moral conduct in regards to others, and B: that childbirth does not fit these criteria.

It has nothing to do with distrust of others, a desire to be left alone, the assertion of ego or self-destruction. — Tzeentch

Wouldn't you say that a view that ultimately seeks to create a universe devoid of subjects that can experience it is self-destructive? It seems hard to ignore this ultimate conclusion of the anti-natalist argument.

But you don't necessarily seem to disagree with me here. Anti-natalists place a strong emphasis on voluntariness and conensuality. That is in line with what I said. I merely placed the spotlight on the more negative aspects of this emphasis. All relationships with others have an element of involuntariness, which is inherent with sharing a universe which is causally connected. You cannot ever be truely an island in this cosmos, and this inability is forced on everyone who lives here. And maybe that's ultimately what the anti-natalist view takes issue with - that once we enter the world, we cannot escape the laws that bind us all together in it.

Nothing comes out of psychonalayzing the guy giving arguments. Respond to the arguments or please don't respond at all. — khaled

There isn't much point in responding to the same thing over and over again.

This has not been shown to be good in what you have highlighted. You have shown that maximizing PEOPLE'S ability to choose is good (or rather, that limiting it is bad, same thing). You have not shown that producing more people so that those people can go around making choices is good. Those are 2 different things. — khaled

I don't claim that there is a moral duty to produce more people, as I already wrote. Just that there is a motivation for having children which is in accordance with free will, and as such moral.

What do you mean “will it be universalized”? I can conceive of a world where personal pleasure is a worthy moral goal and people go around doing whatever they want. — khaled

But would you will such a world into existence? Rawls' veil of ignorance provides a good analogy here: Imagine you're going to end up in this society as an inhabitant, but your socio-economic position is chosen at random. Would you want to live in a world where people go around doing whatever they want?

I know. But you didn’t present any reasoning behind your premise that having the next generation is a worthy goal. So until then it’s an unreasoned premise. — khaled

So far, I only wanted to point out that such an argument might exist, given a moral framework different from the one you seem to be applying.

Making the argument properly would require really fleshing out the basics of the moral system first, which would take a lot of text. I am going to try to do a rough sketch.

I have already stated that what morality is ultimately based on recognizing yourself as a subject interacting with other subjects. From this stems the realisation that free will is at the core of morality - it's what turns one into a subject. So moral rules must be that which are conductive of free will.

One obvious conclusion of that is that it's immoral to destroy freedom of will. The direct way to do this is to destroy subjects - kill them. But in a less absolute way, there are lots of other ways the will can turn out unfree. Such as if you only act according to your desires (the extreme case here is addiction) or if you act in a way that subjects other to your desires, since this impinges on their subjectivity.

If this sounds very similar to the arguments you and other have made consent, it's because it's ultimately the reason why consent is important.

Now if we think about having children, what do we have to consider? Should you just have children because you feel a biological urge to procreate? No, because that isn't a free will, it's an urge. The same would be true if you feel lonely, or feel like you need a child to fix your relationship, or help on the family farm. All of these are clearly just you reacting your circumstance. But, having children in order to continue a society of free subjects is different. There is no outside reason for this to exist - the universe doesn't care. The subjects are an end in an of itself, and having a further presence of subjects furthers free will by creating it's necessary preconditions. It does not necessarily follow from this that not having children is immoral - freedom isn't quantified, so there being more subjects doesn't equal more freedom.

Someone will exist, and it is that person who will exist that we are preventing either the suffering or non-consent, or the "not being used for means to an end" result. — schopenhauer1

But this is clearly impossible. You cannot prevent either suffering, or non-consent, for anyone. Everyone has these imposed, by necessity.

You do not wish for a world of happy and free people. You wish for silence.

Essentially what this comes down to is the themes I have seen here regarding community vs. the individual. The community may be ordinarily needed for the individual to survive, but it is not the community that lives out life. — schopenhauer1

It does seem that the anti-natalist position is, at some basic level, connected to some deep distrust of community, of any kind of relationship to others.

To be in relationships with others always comes with obligations, and this is seen as a fundamental opprobrium. Any kind of common good is paternalistic in nature, hubris, even. Noone can know what is good for anyone else, and so we must all live as isolated eremites, to avoid causing impositions on one another as much as possible until, thankfully, we have all finally died.

Perhaps non-existence is the ultimate form of "being left alone", and this is what's ultimately wished for here. Self-destruction as the ultimate assertion of the ego.

I would expect the person being harmed to also share the goal at least. Or else I can just say go around killing people because I find my own enjoyment a “worthy goal” and I’d be innocent then. — khaled

You'd have to be correct, too.

You do not reach the conclusion that the next generation of humans is something worth striving for by employing reason. That’s a premise, not a reasoned conclusion. One your child may not share. — khaled

Premises can also be conclusions, those aren't ontological categories.

INNOCENT party. — khaled

What's innocence in this context?

You haven’t answered the main question. What makes a goal “morally worthy” or not? — khaled

That you can will it be universalised.

All the time we refer to non existent things which feature in our mental life as ideas and possibilities.
It seems completely necessary to function so that we imagine and predict the future is we head into it. — Andrew4Handel

The problem isn't predicting the future. The problem is acting as if future humans already float around as disembodied souls, which we then snatch to force into some body.

It seems very arrogant to me to assume you should be able to create someone else and they should desire you as a parent. Most people don't feel entitled to snatch a baby if they see it left unintended but parents subconsciously have this entitlement. They want a baby so they create one and come to possess it. — Andrew4Handel

It seems odd and uncharitable to assume people have children because they want to possess them.

We are not supposed to expose other people to harm — Andrew4Handel

I don't think this works as a principle. "Harm ethics" seems to run into the problem of how to quantify harm, and to define it in a non-circular way.

Antinatalism is less of an argument and more an empirically based claim about the harms of and nature of life. It is like telling someone not to enter a building because it is on fire. — Andrew4Handel

The odd thing though is that literally everyone is in the building, and noone can be outside of it. So one wonders who the anti-natalist are advocating for.

So was I. An individual is a single, a single is one, and one is a fundamental unity. The common meaning of "individual" is a fundamental unity. You might say that an "individual" is a person. But isn't this exactly what a person is, a fundamental unity? — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't quite see where you get the unity aspect from. And I think the concepts of single and multitude are mutually dependant. They only become intelligible in conjunction with the other. If there was only one of a kind of entity, we wouldn't call it a "single entity", we'd call it by it's name. Just like we'd not call someone named "Jason" a "single Jason" unless there was some need to differentiate.

At this point you seem to concur, that the existence of the group is caused by the existence of the individuals. But if this is the case, that the capacity, or propensity for empathy is prior to the group which it produces, it creates a perplexity. Why are individual living beings naturally endowed with a propensity toward creating groups? — Metaphysician Undercover

From an evolutionary perspective, it seems like some kind of gathering would have had to come first. A random mutation for sociability wouldn't benefit a species unless they were interacting in some way.

Because it's at the core of the issue. By your use of the word "we" I'm assuming you are a parent? — Tzeentch

I am just using "we" as a term for any potential parent.

The individual one is considering forcing into existence. — Tzeentch

Can you describe to me how an individual is forced into existence? Where are they before the process starts, what forces act on them etc.

Forcing others to do things without their consent needs to be avoided. — Tzeentch

Every "other" I ever met existed at the time, and therefore had, by your logic, already been forced. So it seems like it's unavoidable, even necessary.

That is unless you can point to some other who was ever not forced?

Sure.

The reason is simple; even if one intends to do good by birthing a child, the ends (odds for a happy life) do not justify the means (forcing someone without consent). — Tzeentch

You're not actually engaging with any of my questions. You just keep repeating that we're "forcing someone without consent", but don't explain who that "someone" is supposed to be, or how the decision-making process you envision would function.

Not being able to get consent for an important decision that is made on someone else's behalf would greatly impact how I would weigh predictions and make a decision, if I choose to make a decision at all. — Tzeentch

How does it impact it, exactly? How do you change the weights around?

And if you make no decision, that also has consequences, right?

If I come to the conclusion the decision is too important to be made without consent, then I have no issue with choosing non-action. — Tzeentch

Why non-action? There are still consequences attached to this.

You don't force people to eat your ice cream. — Tzeentch

The analogy isn't about consent. It's about predictions and decisions.

So just like Isaac, the only reason inflicting harm by having children is acceptable for you is because there is some "more worthy" goal which apparently justifies causing unwarranted harm. — khaled

What's unwarranted about harm that results from following a "worthy goal"?

I do not see how you justify causing suffering on a third party for your own desire, knowing full well they may not share your goal of creating the next generation of caring and capable humans, and knowing full well that they may come to despise their existence. — khaled

I justify it by making the assumption that other humans are like me, are capable of reasons, and thus if I use my reason sufficiently well I will reach the same conclusions they would.

Are there many other situations where you impose harm on an innocent party for your own goals? — khaled

Any kind of punishment would seem to fit that bill. Like putting people in prison I judge to have violated the law (if I have that power), or boycotting a business I judge to be unethical.

An unborn child developing into an individual with a will and well-being is (generally speaking) a logical consequence once one makes the decision to have children, thus should be taken into account prior to this decision. I don't see why this is controversial. — Tzeentch

What's controversial is treating this prediction as if it was the state of affairs. To use another analogy: Let's say I developed a new flavor of ice-cream. Any given selection of ingredients will taste good to some people and bad to others. These are predictable consequences. But if I hand out my ice-cream to random customers, I cannot possibly attempt to only give my ice-cream to people that will like it.

What are such overarching moral principles based on, other than the well-being of would-be children? — Tzeentch

Ultimately in your recognition of yourself as a free subject in interaction with other subjects.

Indeed. Isn't that a great reason to think twice before having children? — Tzeentch

I am not arguing against "thinking twice".

I'm not trying to attribute personhood. There's no need for it.

I'm challenging your suggestion that because a child is not yet born, one can do whatever they please in regards to its future. — Tzeentch

I have never suggested one can do whatever one pleases. What I am saying is that unborn children cannot have standing as moral subjects.

Isn't it as simple as taking into account the consequences of one's actions prior to carrying them out?

It seems we're playing dumb, pretending that individuals decide to have children and when the child is born and has a will and well-being, we scratch our heads and wonder where all that came from? — Tzeentch

No, because we're deciding whether to bring about the consequence in the first place. You cannot decide by predicting what you will decide.

What you can - indeed must - do is to predict the consequences of possible decisions. In this sense, you can also predict that the child will have a will and interests. It'd just be a mistake to treat this prediction as current fact.

This is why I earlier wrote that the obligations parents have can feature in the decision. Because those are a predictable consequence. But it'd be false to then apply these obligations to the current decision as if they were already operative.

So the motivation is the only determining factor?

So someone who is millions in debt with no home, who has a drinking problem, and 15 inheritable genetic disease should have children in his current state as long as he intends to try his best to raise them? — khaled

"Intending to" isn't enough. You also need to be able to actually being the goal about. Which includes considering other outcomes.

So as long as I can judge that the child will fulfill my arbitrary desire of them (in your case to create the next generation of compassionate people) then having them is ethical? Might as well say it's ethical in every situation, which I strongly disagree with, and you don't even have to be an AN to disagree with that one. — khaled

Nothing I said had anything to do with "arbitrary desire". I said your reasons need to be moral. That's the opposite of allowing your arbitrary desire to rule.

Here you seem to be placing the child's wellbeing ABOVE the desire of the parents. So creating a slave caste is wrong because everyone in said caste will hate it, even if its creators will love it. — khaled

No that does not follow. — schopenhauer1

It does. It cannot be both no person and a person at the same time. That's the principle of non-contradiction, the most basic principle of logic.

Starting existence, there is no person to be harmed — schopenhauer1

Yes, exactly. Case closed.

If born, they will be harmed. — schopenhauer1

Contradiction in terms. You just said there is no person, so there cannot be a "they" here.

And yes, you can have it such that suffering is sufficiently bad enough to never have been, but life sufficiently good enough that once born, would not want one's interests obliterated. — schopenhauer1

I don't see how this could be the case. Run me through the thought process of some hypothetical soul about to be incarnated, and arrives at your conclusion here.

Here you seem to be placing the child's wellbeing ABOVE the desire of the parents. So creating a slave caste is wrong because everyone in said caste will hate it, even if its creators will love it. — khaled

It'd be wrong even if we also genetically engineer the slaves to like it, on the basis that the motivation is immoral.

What if for example, you knew your next child was going to be severely disabled, would it still be ethical to have them? They WOULD contribute to making a generation of compassionate humans in all likelyhood, but does that justify the harm they will go through? Why or why not? — khaled

So long as you could honestly judge having the child is in line with the maxim, having it would be ethical.

Also, another thing to consider is there is a difference between starting existence and continuing it. As I said many times earlier, prior to birth, there is no person who could be harmed by not being born. — schopenhauer1

Then it follows that necessarily there is also no person who could be harmed by being born.

So how many times does consent and the individual matters do I have to say? How is nuking someone who already exists respecting the individual? Now that they exist, indeed they do have thoughts, desires, fears, preferences, etc. Ironically, this is back to making a decision for someone else again. — schopenhauer1

You're ignoring the context of my comment. As I said over and over, you can either focus on consent, but then run into the problems discussed at length, or you focus on eliminating on suffeirng, but then you run into the question of why bother with consent if it's ultimately suffering we care about.

Both legs of the argument fail on their own terms. Stitching them together to form an inorganic whole doesn't help.

I don't see why you say that. We know suffering exists, with almost 100% certainty. We know of the varieties and kinds that could happen. We also know there is unknown sufferings we didn't even think of. All these things can be prevented. Doesn't seem hard to me. — schopenhauer1

Sure they can be prevented. By nuking everyone, like I said. But you don't want to do that, because you care about consent. But when I bring up that consent cannot possibly apply, you go back and say that this doesn't matter because it's about preventing suffering, and so round and round we go.

You have chosen to use two fundamentally incompatible principles, and switch between them as the defense of your position requires.

The latter must include the former. When looking at reasons to do something, some of those reasons will be "bad" and therefore the action should not be done. For example malicious genetic engineering. I am asking why that is bad. — khaled

We'd need to know the reason why we're doing it thoug. For example, if we're creating some sort of slave caste, because we'd like others to serve us as slaves, this seems like "bad" motivation regardless of the fact that no slaves are yet around. Should we act with the intention to make other sentient being serve us? I'd say no.

What is the reason that makes creating suffering acceptable in the case of having children then? — khaled

For example, you may want children so you can help create a new generation of compassionate and capable humans.

What I sought to point out is that your objection implies that actions that undermine the well-being of a future child cannot be considered wrong or immoral under your premise, which goes against all notions that I am able to conceive of what is considered "good". — Tzeentch

As I already said, it doesn't imply that such actions cannot be considered wrong or immoral. Only that the moral weight cannot come from the will or interest of the non-existent child. We haven't actually excluded that there is an overarching moral principle hat says to not have children when you cannot adequately support them.

If you wish to shift morality from being about outcomes to being about intentions, I'll take the next step and state that "good" behavior requires both intention and outcome. — Tzeentch

You don't control the outcomes though.

Either way I do not see how this deals with the problem I have presented. — Tzeentch

I don't have a problem with admitting that there are some things I still need to figure out regarding the moral weight of future people. But I nevertheless feel very confident that tying yourself into knots trying to somehow attribute personhood to unborn children while maintaining that they don't exist is the solution.

The problem is simple. If one accepts the premise that children do not have a well-being to take into account before they are born, this implies that it is perfectly acceptable to have children even when one is fully aware that they are causing them a life-time of suffering.

To me this contradicts any conceivable notion of parenting and morality. — Tzeentch

Malicious genetic engineering is fine. Even if your next child would have been born healthy. Because there is no actual harm being done when you genetically engineer a child to be blind and deaf for example. There was not a child that was harmed, as once the child is born they are already blind and deaf, the relevant decision is in the past.

I am sure you don't agree. But how do you justify it? — khaled

Both these problems stem from looking at morality as a set of injunctions against specific outcomes, like a criminal law code listing a bunch of injuries you are not allowed to cause. And if a victim cannot be found and thus a prohibition not established, it then follows whatever you do is moral.

The alternative view is to ask what reasons we have for doing something, and whether those reasons are "good". Should I follow these reasons in other circumstance? Shoud everyone? Creating suffering for the sake of suffering is not an acceptable motivation regardless of the outcome. It doesn't matter if I apply it by genetically engineering beings that suffer, or whether I punch my neighbor in the face for fun.

Because that hurts people, and Antinatalists are striving to eradicate all suffering. I don't understand why people keep using this ridiculous argument. It's tiring. — khaled

It won't hurt if you use enough bombs. And anyways, what is the very brief suffering of a few billion compared to the unfathomable suffering of billions upon billions of future generations?

That's just false.
Grass is greener than freedom. Because freedom has no color. — khaled

Well then, nothing else needs to be said. Your argument ultimately rests on nonsense, in the most literal sense of the word.

Then we arrive at the problem already presented: — Tzeentch

I'm not sure I see this as a problem. There are other ways that the situation can be avoided without establishing a moral injunction against "irresponsible parents".

So are they important or not?

You seem to be beating around the bush here. — Tzeentch

The question is meaningless.

If not the interests of the child, from where do these obligations stem? — Tzeentch

Good question. Perhaps the obligation is also self-contradictory. But on the other hand we could say that the obligation rests on the abstract needs of children, not on any personal interest.

And if we cannot divine what the child's feelings are about being forced to live, isn't that a great reason to refrain from forcing it to? — Tzeentch

This implies that there is a child with feelings, floating around as a disembodied soul or something, before the decision to even have a child is made.

Otherwise, the sequence of events doesn't work out, because by the time there is a child, it's already living, and the relevant decision is in the past.

So you are now saying we are taking freedom away from the thing that does not exist yet? — schopenhauer1

That's the implication of following your logic.

At instant X when that person is born, there was a decision made that affected it, that it could not possibly make. Yep. — schopenhauer1

What decision is made "at the instant a person is born"?

I don't know what that means.. suffering that's necessary in the first place. Again, no one "needs" to exist just so they can realize suffering exists. — schopenhauer1

Everyone needs to exist. If you don't exist, you're not part of everyone.

If a baby is 99% sure to get tortured if born, we don't need it to be born to have torture, so that torture exists so that we can then say it is wrong — schopenhauer1

Torture already exists. It's the individual child that does not.

Clearly all cases of suffering can be prevented, but were not if procreation occurs. Same odd thinking as Benkei to not be able to generalize all instances of suffering and then realize that this can be prevented, and not initiated on someone else's behalf. — schopenhauer1

This isn't the same argument though. This goes back to what I said earlier. You can avoid the problem of causality and attributing a will to nonexistence by committing to just eradicating suffering as a phenomenon. The problem is that you then have to answer why we're not nuking the planet into oblivion.

Clearly I meant if you believe that you should follow it — schopenhauer1

But then it's me who gets to judge, isn't it?

This is the ridiculous move Benkei also makes.. You don't believe in future outcomes. There is no actual person now, but there will be in the future. It is the person who will be in the future that has the suffering you are preventing. Stop with the sophistry. — schopenhauer1

I do believe in future outcomes. The problem is that you want us to act as if the outcome has simultaneously happened and not happened.

I do not follow.

I don't know you, but when I was conceived, I was only me, not a group of any kind. — Gus Lamarch

when you were conveived, you were your mother.