How does any of that engage with my argument? Argue against a premise.

No you didn't. You seem incapable of foccusing on the argument in the op

Anti-natalists are saying that bringing people into the world is ok only if there is no risk. — T Clark

No they're not. Some do, some don't. This thread is about one particular argument for antinatalism - the one in the OP. It is not about 'antinatalism'- it is about the harmfulness of death an antinatalism. Focus.

If we have reason to avoid death under virtually all circumstances, — DA671

Learn. To. Read.

I said 'virtually all circumstances' not 'all circumstances'. The difference is somewhat important.

I have already replied to your unjustified claims, my friend. Progress without openness is not possible. — DA671

No you haven't. And my conclusion is justified - see the valid and apparently sound argument I gave for it. That's how one justifies a view.

We do not avoid our death under all circumstances. — DA671

Learn. To. Read.

The premise that we have a reason to avoid death under every circumstance is dubious, — DA671

Can you read? Where did I say that? Quote me.

Everything that has come into being needs a cause of its doing so. And as there is not an actual infinity of past causes, some things must not have come into being. That is, some things must just exist, without having been caused to.

But there does not need to be one such thing. Indeed, the idea seems unreasonable, given the complexity of the universe. More reasonable to infer that it is the product of the causal activity of lots of uncreated things, not one alone.

And it is even more unreasonable, it seems to me, to suppose that the one uncreated thing who created it all is God - an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person. For we are all immoral and ignorant fools living in a sub optimal world - a world that does not at all seem the creation of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person.

It is odd, to me, that so many theists - and I am a theist - believe that God created us and the universe we live in. Seems grotesquely implausible. More reasonable to believe that God exists and did not create us or the universe we live in. More reasonable to believe it to be the product of the causal activity of lots and lots of uncreated idiots.

Considering that most people do seem to find immense value in their lives even in the face of harm, I don't think that it's justifiable to believe that all lives are mostly bad. — DA671

Which premise are you denying?

Your posts have been rather convoluted. Elucidating distinctions is not a reflection of a misunderstanding of language, though the failure to understand that might be an interesting thing to consider. — DA671

No, you just don't seem to understand the difference between saying that we have 'reason' to do something and saying that we fear something. Anyway, which premise are you denying?

If "reason" was referring to something being actually good/bad for us, I already said that I don't think that a valueless state (nonexistence) could have value/disvalue. — DA671

No, that's not what it means either. And saying something doesn't make it true - argue for your claims.

You need to say which premise you think is false and then construct an argument that has the negation of that premise as a conclusion.

If possible, I would appreciate it if you could make it clear what you mean by "reason". Does "reason" mean that we have some arguments for believing that death is bad irrespective of what anybody thinks? So, it would be bad even if everybody wanted to die? Or does it mean that we appear to have certain concerns about death? Again, the latter has multiple explanations including fear and loss. It doesn't have much to do with the actual "badness" of death. — DA671

You have reason to believe that 3 x 18 = 54. You have reason to do what serves your ends provided that doing so is not immoral. And so on. They're called 'normative reasons'. They're reasons to do things.

Now, if I said we have reason to believe 3 x 18 = 54 would it be sensible to reply "but lots of people are not afraid of 3 x 18 = 54"? Or "some people like it that 3 x 18 = 54, but some people do not"? No.

We have reason to avoid death, extreme circumstances aside. That is uncontroversial.

We have reason to avoid death because it harms us. That is an analysis of why we have reason to avoid death. And it is highly plausible.

Anyway, it's all the in the OP.

That's one standpoint. It's not so hard to challenge. We're all going to heaven. We're all going to the place of peace and calm. We reunite with the nature. No matter how good your life is right now, it is going to end up spectacularly. — pfirefry

Oh, ok. If you say so. It's just it is not what any of the evidence implies. But if you dislike a conclusion, then it's false. That's definitely how reality works.

My point is that the above wouldn't really change anything. Regardless of how people feel about their inevitable death, they are just currently immersed in their lives. They are not quitters. Not looking for an easy way out. That's what humans do. — pfirefry

Relevance?

If someone things that it's not so terrible to face the immanence of death, they will be inclined to procreate. That's what the majority does. — pfirefry

And again: relevance?

I used fear to refer to our aversion to death. — DA671

Which premise mentioned that? You seem to think that saying 'we have reason to avoid dying' means the same as 'we are averse to dying' or 'we fear dying'. It doesn't. Don't you understand English?

I don't think that our lives are bad overall, so I don't believe that procreation is always immoral. I don't deny that they could be. — DA671

So what? Your thoughts don't determine what's what, not last I checked. I provided an argument that appears to show that our lives are overall terrible and that procreation is therefore incredibly immoral. You've said nothing to challenge it; all you've done is say things unrelated to it.

Now, which premise are you challenging. None of them are 'irrelevant'. The arguments are valid syllogisms, so if you think the conclusion is false then you need to identify a false premise.

Which premise are you disputing? Here's the argument again:

Argument 1:

1. If we have reason to avoid death under virtually all circumstances, including circumstances in which our lives are already sub optimal in terms of their happiness to misery balance (up to a certain limit), the best explanation of this is that death harms us and harms us by permanently altering our condition for the worse.
2. We have reason to avoid death under virtually all circumstances etc.
3. Therefore, death harms us by permanently altering our condition for the worse

Argument 2:

1. If our deaths permanently alter our condition for the worse, then all of our lives are bad overall and cause their subjects far more harm than benefit.
2. Our deaths permanently alter our condition for the worse (from the argument above)
3. Thus all of our lives are bad overall and cause their subjects far more harm than benefit

Argument 3:

1. If our lives are bad overall and cause their subjects far more harm than benefit, then it is immoral to create such lives.
2. Our lives are bad overall and cause their subjects far more harm than benefit
3. Therefore, it is immoral to create such lives. — Bartricks

Try and focus. Don't think I've said things that I haven't said - no premise mentions fear, does it? Again: FOCUS. Which premise do you dispute?

They are not bored. They are dealing with depression and post-trauma reactions, or an overwhelming situational problem - a crisis which temporarily has a detrimental hold on them. — Tom Storm

Irrelevant. It would be irrational, would it not, to kill oneself just because one is a bit bored and one's life shows no prospect of being anything other than mildly boring?

It is plausibly rational to kill yourself if you are on fire, say, or if it is the only way to avoid burning to death. It is not plausibly rational to kill yourself if your life is just overall boring.

That tells us something - it tells us that death is immensely harmful to us. Or at least, that's the most reasonable explanation. Death is so harmful that it is rational to try and avoid it as long as possible, even if one's life has ceased to be a happy one.

My role in these cases is to prevent unnecessary death. It is not tied to any presuppositions other than life is preferable to death. — Tom Storm

Precisely - so death must be really, really bad. If it wasn't, then why on earth would we have reason to avoid it like the plague?

The harm of death cannot plausibly reside in what it deprives one of, for if it did then those with moderately miserable lives would have overall reason to kill themselves. Yet it is clear to most of us that even they have reason to avoid death.

So you're not drawing the moral: the moral is that to die is incredibly harmful to the one who dies, regardless of the state of their life.

Imagine Sarah was planning on going to the cinema to see a film she wanted to see, but she accidentally spills boiling hot oil on herself and spends the evening writhing in pain. Now, it is plausible that the harm of oil spill resided in the fact it deprived Sarah of an evening at the cinema? Not remotely. It did do that. But the harm of it resided mainly in the fact it caused Sarah absolute agony.

That's what death is like - it does deprive us of life here, but it is absurd to suppose that its harmfulness to us resides in that, as absurd as supposing that the oil spill harmed Sarah by depriving her of an evening of movie going.

Do you mean that our lives are slightly miserable in the moment, or do you mean in general? — pfirefry

I have said nothing about how miserable or not our lives are - clearly, some are happy and some are miserable.

The claim 'we have reason to avoid death even if our lives are slightly miserable' is not equivalent to the claim that 'our lives are slightly miserable'.

If I'm feeling slightly miserable, I won't accept death as an answer, because it would deprive me of lots of things worth having in the future. — pfirefry

No it won't. That's the example. Imagine that your life is moderately miserable and that there is no prospect of it being any better. Now, it is rational for you to kill yourself? Surely not.

How on earth does that make sense if the disvalue of death is a function of the value of the life it deprives you of? If your life is moderately miserable then you won't be deprived of anything of positive value if you die. Yet you have reason not to die. So the harmfulness of death is not a function of what it deprives you of, for it is harmful even when it deprives you of nothing worth having.

It's a fun thing to say that life can report benefit profits. It's hard to measure the profits of life objectively. But let's say that we did this. We have a period with losses. How would this look like? Does it mean that after a year of my life I ended up more miserable than I was a year ago? Why should I care? Life goes up and down. Just the fact that sometimes it going down doesn't mean that we should end it instantly. — pfirefry

Er, you clearly don't understand the example at all.

That's what our reason says about us - the implication is that death itself is immensely harmful, so much so that it never makes sense to wind your life up until or unless continuing it will incur huge costs.
— Bartricks

I agree. But I wouldn't make an inference that we should stop procreating. I'm assuming that the main point of antinatalism is not that death is harmful, but that we shouldn't procreate. Death is harmful in the context of a living being. It's not as harmful in the context of procreation. It is more harmful to not procreate than to procreate and to cause death by it. Our reason tells us that life worth living despite death. Otherwise, we would end our lives immediately. — pfirefry

So, my arguments - which you have not challenged - show that we're all going to hell. That is, no matter how good your life is right now, it is going to end up really, really bad. For you are going to die, and death clearly takes you to a much worse place than here. For that is why your reason implores you to stay here for as long as possible, unless you are in abject agony with no prospect of it ending. (So, the 'other place' that you are going to when you die is not quite as bad as being in abject agony, but is is still not very nice at all).

Now, how on earth would it be ethical to bring another person into that situation? It is awful that we are in it. It would be wicked to bring someone else into it too.

I addressed the possibility that death is harmful because of what it deprives us of and provided an apparent decisive refutation of it. Death is clearly something we have reason to avoid even when our lives are slightly miserable. Death under those circumstances would not deprive you of anything worth having. Thus its disvalue is not reflective of the positive value of life. Similarly, when in unending agony, we have reason to die - yet death is still the lesser of two evils under such circumstances. Still bad, then. Yet it deprives one of nothing worth having - far from it.. So it is plainly implausible that the disvalue of death is a function of the value of life. Even when life here ceases to report a benefit profit, it remains rational to avoid death up until the harms of continued living become immense.

I used an analogy of a loss making company. If the company - life plc - is recording a slight loss, year on year, you'd think it'd make sense to wind it up immediately. But your accountant tells you that that's not a good idea at all and that it is best to keep it running at a loss and only to wind it up if the losses become huge. What gives? What would be the rational inference to make? Surely that winding the company up will itself incur huge costs, - losses far greater than the losses you incur by keeping it running.

That's what our reason says about us - the implication is that death itself is immensely harmful, so much so that it never makes sense to wind your life up until or unless continuing it will incur huge costs.

Again, which premise are you disputing? You have just said you do think there are reasons to avoid dying - so which premise are you denying? You don't seem to have a stable or cogent criticism

Which premise are you disputing? Note, no premise mentions evolution or our beliefs.

I take it you are attempting to challenge 1 by arguing that as we can give an evolutionary story about how we might have come to 'believe'that we have reason to avoid dying, we do not in fact have reason to avoid dying. If that is your argument, it proves too much, for presumably there is an evolutionary story to be told about all of our beliefs - are you arguing that all our beliefs are false? (Including that one).

So your argument is actually - we have no reason to believe or do anything. As well as being obviously indefensible and itself unbelievable, it applies to any argument for anything. So, it is silly. You haven't engaged with my argument so much as rejected the whole project of arguing for anything. If that's what you are reduced to doing, then my argument is very strong.

This thread is about a particular argument for antinatalism, not about antinatalism broadly construed (there are all manner of arguments for antinatalism, some good - mine - some bad - such as Benatar's).

So, in a rather pointless attempt to encourage focus, here's my argument. broken into three syllogisms:

Argument 1:

1. If we have reason to avoid death under virtually all circumstances, including circumstances in which our lives are already sub optimal in terms of their happiness to misery balance (up to a certain limit), the best explanation of this is that death harms us and harms us by permanently altering our condition for the worse.
2. We have reason to avoid death under virtually all circumstances etc.
3. Therefore, death harms us by permanently altering our condition for the worse

Argument 2:

1. If our deaths permanently alter our condition for the worse, then all of our lives are bad overall and cause their subjects far more harm than benefit.
2. Our deaths permanently alter our condition for the worse (from the argument above)
3. Thus all of our lives are bad overall and cause their subjects far more harm than benefit

Argument 3:

1. If our lives are bad overall and cause their subjects far more harm than benefit, then it is immoral to create such lives.
2. Our lives are bad overall and cause their subjects far more harm than benefit
3. Therefore, it is immoral to create such lives.

Now, I do not think a reasonable doubt can be had about any of the premises of those arguments. The only premise I think a slither of a doubt can be had about is premise 1 of argument 1. As I have said before, it does not follow from us having reason not to x, that xing will harm us. And so there's scope to argue that although we do indeed have reason to avoid death under almost all circumstances, the reason in question is to do with some other consideration apart from harm.

But what other consideration would it be? Is it immoral for us to kill ourselves, for instance, and immoral for reasons unrelated to harm? Well, perhaps, but intuitively it does not seem immoral so much as irrational. Plus in general we do not have moral obligations to ourselves. So, insisting that the reason we ought to avoid death is a moral reason looks ad hoc.

Perhaps death is not harmful at all and thus the reason must be generated by some other consideration, even if we can't identify what consideration it is. There's a famous case for thinking death might be harmless that was first made by Epicurus. Epicurus argued that death can't harm us, for we don't exist at the time.

However, although Epicurus is surely right that you need to exist in order to be harmed, he just assumes that death ends our existence. Yet we seem to have good reason to think it doesn't, precisely because we seem to have reason to avoid it. Why would we have reason to avoid something harmless? There could be a reason, of course, but it would be question begging just to assume there is. Absent actual evidence that we have reason to avoid death due to some consideration unrelated to harm, the default is that we have reason to avoid death due to its harmfulness. And that, combined with Epicurus's plausible assumption that one needs to exist in order to be harmed, simply gets us to the conclusion that death does not end our existence. It does not, in other words, raise any kind of reasonable doubt about premise 1.

So, there you go - three arguments, all the premises of which seem true beyond a reasonable doubt, and that entail that antinatalism is true.

No, present an argument - say which claim you dispute and why. Don't do that thing that everyone does, which is to think that if they just 'say' that they disagree with a premise, that constitutes a refutation of the argument.

Note what I did in the OP - I made a case. I showed how an interesting conclusion follows from some premises that seem, on the face of it, true beyond a reasonable doubt.

Try and do the same. That is, don't just blurt "I don't agree with that!" or 'that's not true!!!!' and think that by itself constitutes a refutation. Argue. Try and show how the negation of one of my premises follows from other premises, more plausible than any of mine.

Again, I refer you to my earlier comment. Comprehension skills: D.

Address the argument that leads to that conclusion. Note, that a conclusion describes qualities that you find you yourself possess, does not make the argument ad hominem. Rejecting the conclusion because you dislike the arguer, however, is ad hominem.

So, once again, turn the old meat walnut on and try and come up with a cogent criticism of the argument in the OP.

Agreed, but you and Agent Smith started it. — T Clark

No, you started it. Rather than address the argument, you decided to engage in some cod psychology.

Note as well, that accusing procreators of being evil is not to focus on the arguer rather than the argument. It is rather what the antinatalist conclusion implies about them. That is not to make things personal: it is just a conclusion of an argument.

If you address the argument I presented for antinatalism, then I will address your objections to it. But note, the argument implies that anyone who has voluntarily procreated is a wicked person. If you think that conclusion is false, then address the argument.

You won't, of course. For so far all you have done is insist - on the basis of no argument that I can discern - that we do not have reason to avoid death under virtually all circumstances. Make a case for that - that is, make an argument that has that as a conclusion that follows logically from some premises, and then I can inspect those premises and see if they have any self-evidence to them at all.

Part of my role involves working in the area of suicide prevention — Tom Storm

If our deaths take us to hell - as the evidence powerfully implies - wouldn't that realization prevent many from committing suicide?

Despite the strong taboos of religions and culture, suicidality is common and not often the result of 'agony'. Generally it is situational and people just don't have the desire to continue because they find life overwhelming emotionally. We understand that around 15% of people consider suicide at some point. — Tom Storm

My claim is about the rationality of avoiding death, not about what people actually do or think. Lots of people think gambling on slot machines is a good idea - that doesn't mean it is.

Now presumably you think that these people - the ones who are not in agony with no prospect of it ending, but are just bored and what a change of scene - do not, in fact, have reason to kill themselves? I mean, why else are you trying to prevent them from doing it? Surely your very job presupposes the truth of what I am saying, namely that, in the main, killing oneself is irrational and thus those who are inclined to do so need help and to be diverted from making an irrational and very harmful choice?

Many people don't want to live. The offical figures for suicide are alway under. — Tom Storm

Again, I don't see how this challenges anything I have said. First, simply not wanting to live is not sufficient, is it, to make it rational to kill oneself? Someone who didn't want to live because they believe that there is a better place just the other side of death is, surely, someone you'd consider had reason 'not' to kill themselves.

Look, I am not making any claims about how miserable or happy anyone actually is. My claim is that we have reason to avoid death unless our lives have become lives of unending agony. That's not a claim about how many people want to die or do not - it is not an empirical claim. I am not claiming anything about how miserable or happy any actual person is. I am making a normative claim - a claim about what we have reason to do or not do. And it is true, is it not? LIke I say, if you work in suicide prevention, doesn't your job presuppose that what I am saying is true? Otherwise, why are you trying to prevent people from doing it? The job presupposes that it is irrational in the main, surely?

Agent Smith, Bartricks, and the other anti-natalists are misfits. They were never going to have children with or without the justifications provided by philosophy. Anti-natalism is just the rationalization that people who don't belong use to dignify their misanthropy. — T Clark

You should focus on arguments, not arguers. But I can assure you that I haven't procreated because it is dumb and immoral - so i haven't procreated on the basis of the arguments (it's something I tend to do - I tend to think before i make life-changing decisions...try it). But as we're now assessing individuals not arguments, I suspect the only reason you're convinced antinatalism is false is because you've bred. Note too, I can breed if I want to, whereas you can't undo your breeding choice. So you've got far more of a vested interest in antinatalism being false than I have in it being true. Thus, if we're basing our assessment of views on the motives and vested interests of the arguers - which is fallacious, but seems to be how you do things - then you're the one with the false view. You argue fallaciously, but even by your own fallacious standards your view comes out false! Good job.

Anyway, back to the actual case I made in the OP (which is what you ought to be assessing).

We have reason to avoid death under most circumstances. That's one of my premises and it is not remotely controversial. Anyone denying it owes an argument, and it'd better be a really good one.

The reason we have reason to avoid death under most circumstances is instrumental: it harms us. You have reason not to punch yourself in the face - why? Because it'll harm you to do that. You have reason to avoid death - why? Because it'll harm you.

That is slightly - slightly - more controversial, as it is in principle possible for us to have reason to avoid death without it being harmful to us. Nevertheless, the harmfulness of death seems both itself to be self-evident to reason and to be the best explanation of why we have reason to avoid it under most circumstances. Again, anyone disputing this premise would need to provide a powerful argument in defence of their rejection.

So, it is beyond a reasonable doubt that death harms us. But by how much? Well, it would seem a huge amount. For we seem to have reason to avoid death even if our lives here promise to be mildly miserable. At no point in the mildly miserable life does one have reason to seek death. Extreme misery - perhaps. Agony, perhaps. But killing oneself because one's life is mildly miserable seems irrational.

If the harm of death is so great that a mildly miserable life here of any length is preferable, then the harm of death must be colossal and, it would seem, it must transform our condition for the worse (otherwise there would come a point where the length of the mildly miserable life would make a difference to the rationality of suicide - which intuitively it does not).

Thus, death is a huge harm, and the harm in question involves one's condition changing for the worse. Death is, like I say, a portal to hell. That's what our reason is telling us, if we listen to it carefully and stop engaging in wishful thinking.

Now if death is a portal to hell, then we're all going to hell. Anyone here is going to hell. If that is our predicament, then anyone of moral sensibility will draw the same conclusion: it is wrong to make it anyone else's predicament as well; wrong, in other words, to bring anyone else here.

The argument I made is simple: death is a harm of such gravity that it plausibly outweighs all the goods a life contains. It isn't hard to understand.

It is clear that it is a harm, for our reason tells us to avoid it at almost all costs.

And our reason tells us to avoid it even if our lives are a little miserable. So, it seems that 80 years of moderate misery is better than death. And that goes for a life of 150 years of moderate misery, and 500 years and so on. Our reason tells us to stay here, in this realm, for as long as we possibly can, save agony. That is, it tells us that it is in our interests to stay here, in this realm, forever, if possible, so long as one's life is not outright terrible.

That's not controversial. Scenarios under which it is plausible we might have reason to kill ourselves or another are invariably terrible, extreme circumstances, in which a person is suffering agony and loss of dignity, or in which one person's continued living will visit suffering and agony or death on others.

So, it is uncontroversial that our reason tells us to stay here - to avoid death - extreme and very taxing circumstances aside.

Only an idiot would think that implies death is great - a benefit, a door to a better place. I mean, that makes no sense at all - that's not what reason is implying. And only an idiot would think this implies death is nothing, no harm at all. Again, even a 7 year old can see how silly a conclusion that would be. No, the implication - very powerful implication, so powerful it is the only sensible one, other things being equal - is that death is a portal to a terrible place. Death takes one to a life worse than this one - worse, that is, unless you're in absolute agony with no prospect of it ending so long as one remains here.

Now, that implication - which is not reasonably deniable - establishes the truth of antinatalism. For only some kind of psycho would now think it is morally ok to bring others into our predicament. Even those who think antinatalism is false agree that it would be wrong to bring into existence a person whose life would be characterized by great agony. And that does not change if, within that person's life of agony, there is a weekend of happiness. Well, that is our situation: we are, if we are lucky, enjoying the weekend of happiness.

The argument I made was not about what we fear. That's a psychological issue, not a philosophical one.

Death is clearly more harmful than torture, at least in the main, as we have reason to take being tortured over death, other things being equal.

Death is clearly a significant harm, and I have shown that our reason implies it is a harm of such gravity that it makes any life that contains it bad overall.

It is implausible that death is non-existence, as then it would not be harmful at all. Yet it manifestly is

You've proven my point about projection by accusing me of doing what you have been indulging in throughout this thread without providing adequate justification. — DA671

I've justified everything I've said! Jesus. You now want to make this about the arguer, not the arguments, yes? Standard ploy.

Now, if you do something that brings about someone's death, that's a killing, yes? We don't have to look into whether the thing you did also brought the person into existence. It is sufficient that what you did caused a death. See bomb example for details.

Here's another one: Jane can only give birth over the edge of an extremely high building. Don't know why - doesn't matter - it's just a peculiar fact about Jane. So, any baby she has will fall to its death. Should she have a baby? Or would she be a murderer if she did?

I have provided you with numerous examples, most of which you have simply ignored. So here's one again: Tom and Jane want to have a kid, but they know that any kid they have will live in agony and then die. They ought not to have the kid, right?

What if it will enjoy one day of pain-free life, the rest agony - is it now ok for them to have the kid?

The difference between your "X" and my "X" is that not doing your X (stabbing or shooting) results in an actual person living longer, whereas not doing my X (creating them) does not imbue a soul in the void with the energy of immortality. — DA671

Did you even read my example of the bomb-statue? They - the bomb's victims - would not have existed had it not been for me planting the bomb. Presumably you think it not wrong to plant such a bomb?

Your beliefs are increasingly starting to seem like vacuous projections, my friend. — DA671

You mean you're on the ropes.

Once again, knowing that people die has nothing to do with creating a valuable life, because we also know that giving birth to someone does not cause any individual to lose their life. — DA671

Ah, the old repeat things and they'll be true approach. Now, once again, you are killing someone if you do something that brings about their death - and that's what procreation does. Your reply is simply to deny this, not highlight any error in my reasoning or definition of a killing.

And don't point out that bringing a person here gives them all these wonderful benefits. I have already addressed that - they're eclipsed by the harmfulness of death.

Don't just keep nay saying. It's tedious.

No, it does not. — DA671

Yes it does. Baby steps. If you procreate, the person you bring here is going to die. And you know that they are going to die. So you are doing something that will kill another person. This really isn't hard to understand. If you do x, a person will die and will die because you did x. So, x kills a person. x is procreation. Procreating kills a person.

And death is bad, yes? A harm. A big one. So big it makes any life here in which it features - so, all of them - bad overall.

Indeed. Thankfully, procreation kills nobody. — DA671

No, it does kill people - have you not been paying attention at all? It kills the person it brings here. Jeez. You're like someone who insists their act of stabbing Jane did not kill Jane, the knife did.

Now, procreation kills someone. The question is now whether it is a justified killing. And it isn't. Why? Well, lots of reasons, but one of them - one sufficient to establish the wickedness of the act - is that any goods that living here may bring to the liver of the life are eclipsed by the harmfulness of the death you've fated them to suffer. Again, for details see the argument in the OP and that I have made numerous times since.

Knowing people die is not the same as killing them. — DA671

I didn't say it was. Knowing that x will kill someone and then doing it is, however, to kill a person. Yes?

If you know that doing x will result in someone's death, that's not killing someone. That's just knowing something.

If you know that doing x will result in someone's death....and then you do it, then that is called 'killing someone'

If you procreate, you are killing someone.

Perhaps they exist prior to your act, perhaps they don't - it makes no difference.

And again: consider my bomb-statue case. By your lights planting the bomb statue was a morally innocuous act, yes? But it's clearly not - it's an act of murder. As is procreation. It kills people. It brings people here, into the killing zone.

I am surprised you cannot see that the two cases are morally equivalent.

If you procreate, you're killing someone. The person you bring here is going to die. You know this and you do it anyway. That's culpable manslaughter. Presumably you think that the fact their being here at all was contingent upon your act somehow means you're not killing them.

But that's true of my bomb-statue case too. I plant it knowing it will go off in 150 years - so, no-one it will kill is currently here. And I know as well that the only people it will kill, will be people who would not have been brought here had I not planted the bomb-statue.

Does that mean my act of planting the bomb-statue was not wrong after all? If you were on a jury would you exonerate me on the grounds that nobody the bomb killed would have existed if the bomb hadn't been planted?

Anyway, the two cases appear equivalent in morally relevant respects, and so equally immoral.

It's still wrong because it would harm existing people. That still has nothing to do with creating them, so I think you missed my point. — DA671

So does the act of procreation. There is someone who does not yet exist that my act of procreation, should I perform it, will kill. Just as there is someone who does not yet exist that the bomb will kill. What's the difference? It's wrong to plant the bomb - because it will kill someone. It's wrong to procreate, for that too will kill someone.

Imagine the bomb is also a beautiful statue. So beautiful is the statue that people come to marvel at it and some of those people are inspired by the statue to breed. And I knew this would happen. And I knew as well that it was the offspring of those folk whom the statue inspired to breed who'd be killed by the bomb when it detonates in 150 years. Is my act now not wrong - not an act of murder?

So creating a person is not the same as ending them because they don't exist in the first place. — DA671

So, let's say I plant a bomb in the centre of a city with a fuse that means it will go off in 150 years. That's wrong, yes? That's an act of murder. Yet no one the bomb will kill exists at the moment.

When it comes to pre-existence: we either pre-exist or we do not. Those exhaust the possibilities. If we pre-exist - and we have good reason to think we do, for we appear to be indivisible and indivisible things exist with aseity - then from our epistemic standpoint we are not justified in believing that those who are not here are existing in hell or heaven or something inbetween. So they cancel out. In terms of the justifiability of our acts of procreation, it doesn't matter whether we pre-exist or not. If procreation is wrong, it is wrong regardless of whether we pre-exist or not. To believe that those whom we do not bring here are left languishing in hell is to have an unjustified and self-serving belief.

Now, when it comes to death, other things are not equal - that's the point. We have excellent evidence that death harms us. We have no evidence whatsoever that our pre-existent state was harmful to us. We do have evidence - extremely powerful evidence - that death is harmful, so harmful that it makes life here overall bad. See the argument in the OP and throughout this thread for details.

The valley of life as well, my friend. — DA671

So? Again: you die. Everyone here dies. Nobody here 'had' to be here - we were all brought here by the actions of others. For all you know, you existed before somewhere else. You were brought here, into the valley of death.

And death is a harm. And it is a harm that is worse than life here. That's why our reason - which has our back for the most part - tells us to stay here as long as we can.

Now how is it moral to bring someone into our predicament? We are on our way to hell - that's what reason is telling us in so many words. How is it moral to decide "oh, I know, I'll bring someone else here to join me, so that I can be loved without deserving it, and then they can die and go to hell too"?

Imagine that Alex and Roger want to have a child. But the doctors tell them that any child they have will inherit a genetic disorder that will mean their life will be agony from the get-go. That is, the child will be born in extreme agony and live in extreme agony and then die. It'd be wrong for Alex and Roger to press ahead and have the child, would it not? What if, for a brief period of one day, the child will have a happy, pain free day and then the agony will resume - that's a feature of this bizarre and horrible disorder. Would it now be ok for them to press ahead? Does that one day of happy pain-free life outweigh the thousands of days of agony followed by death? No, clearly not.

Would it make any difference if the child lived for 10,000 years in agony but would enjoy 50 years of happy pain free living?

If you procreate, you're committing manslaughter. You know that what you do will kill a person - the person you bring into this realm. They're going to die. They're going to die because you brought them here. This is the valley of death. People die here. Everyone dies. You're going to die. You know this to be your fate. Surely only an evilly self-absorbed inconsiderate person would make it someone else's too, other things being equal?

Death is a big harm, yes? It isn't nothing - it isn't harmless. If it was harmless, then we would not have reason to avoid it under all but the most extreme circumstances. If it was harmless, killing people wouldn't be a grave wrong. Blowing a leaf into someone's face is not a grave wrong, for it is harmless - well, killing an unloved otherwise unknown tramp would be the moral equivalent to blowing a leaf in someone's face. It isn't though, is it? It seriously wrong to kill an unloved otherwise unknown tramp - because it harms that person considerably.

Perhaps you think that life here is so beneficial to the liver that the benefits outweigh all the harms, including the harm of death.

But that seems implausible. For the harm of death is so great that even if your life is going relatively badly - even if it is a moderately miserable life - you have reason to avoid it. So even a lifetime of moderate misery is better than death - the harm of death is greater than a lifetime of moderate misery. So it's a huge harm. Indeed, even if our lives here lasted 150 years or 200 years or a 1000 years, you would still have reason to avoid death even if your life is moderately miserable. What gives? Why would that be? What does that tell us? Nothing?!? That death is harmless or a portal to a better life? Er, no. It tells us that it most likely permanently changes our condition for the worse - that it takes us to hell. Think about it!

ou yourself had said that reason and desire are different, but then you simultaneous suggest that something most people believe to be bad based upon an uncritical perspective of it gives us a rational reason for thinking it's genuinely bad and that appears to make no sense. — DA671

I don't know what you mean. I have said that we have reason to avoid death under most circumstances. I have said that this is because death is harmful - that is, the best explanation of why we have reason to avoid death is that death harms us.

I am not talking about people and their psychologies - I am talking about what we have reason to do and why.

Many people are averse to death, but this doesn't mean the same thing as us having a rational reason to avoid it. — DA671

I never said otherwise. I did not say people are averse to death - that's a psychological claim that others keep attributing to me. I said we have reason to avoid death. That does not mean the same thing at all.

Again, my claim - which is uncontroversial - is that we have reason to avoid death under all but the most extreme circumstances. That is not - not - a psychological claim. It does not mean the same as 'most people don't want to die' or 'most people are averse to death'. 'Reason to' and 'want to' are not synonymous expressions.

In terms of people's averseness to death, I do think there are parallels. Someone who holds to a deprivation account might feel worse about death than one who does not. In my reply, I distinguished between desires and reason (something being the "right" thing to do). I believe that you missed this point. — DA671

I don't know why you are continuing to talk about why people may be averse to death. You're not engaging with what I have argued. You're just making psychological claims - they're irrelevant. Again, my claim is not the psychological one "people are averse to death". My claim is that we have 'reason' to avoid death.

Do you believe that we have reason to avoid death under all but the most extreme circumstances? Forget what other people think and forget psychological analysis. Does it strike you as obvious that if drinking x will kill you, you have reason not to drink x?

Didn't he also say "I do not want to live on through my children, I want to marry one" or have I got that wrong? Oh, yes, I have. "I do not want to live on through my children, I want to live on in my apartment".

I merely said that we disvalue death because it can cut short potentially good experiences. Personally, I don't think that it has any positive/negative value (aside from the process). I did not ignore anything you had said, but I apologise if I did so accidentally. — DA671

I am not talking about why people disvalue death. That's a sociological question, not a philosophical one.

Our reason tells us to avoid death under most circumstances. That implies it is harmful, yes?

The deprivation account is demonstrably false. If it was true, then death would not be a harm if your life is drab or if you are in agony and death is the only escape. The death is still a harm in those circumstances, is it not? It is the lesser of two evils. But the lesser of two evils is still an evil. So, the deprivation account is false. It does not matter that many people 'think' it is true. So what? Have they thought about it carefully, as I have? No. Have they noticed that if the deprivation account is true, then death is good, not bad, when it is visited on those whose lives are slightly drab or on those whose lives are agony. No.

So, the deprivation account is false.

Whether or not we have a "reason" (in the sense of something being preferable for us) to avoid death depends on the framework one has. — DA671

No it doesn't. That's like thinking that whether the world is spherical or flat depends on your framework. No it doesn't. It depends on what shape it is.

Christians think they're going to heaven when they die. Do you think that means they are? Is that all one needs to do? If you think it, it will be so? Have you not noticed that this is not at all how the world works?

You also mischaracterize what a 'reason' is. A reason is not a personal preference. A reason to do something is known as a 'normative reason'. Our personal preferences can inform what we have reason to do - if I really want to do x, then probably that will generate a reason for me to do it - but a reason to do something is not made of our personal preferences. Tom has a reason not to kill Jane even if he really wants to, yes? Well, if 'reason to' just meant 'prefers to' then that would make no sense. But Tom has a reason not to kill Jane even if he wants to - so clearly reasons to do things are not made of our own preferences and talk of reasons to do things is not just a convoluted way of talking about what we prefer to do.

Let's say you wake up one morning and you happen to want to kill yourself. Does that mean you now do have reason to kill yourself? That, magically, it is now rational for you to kill yourself? No, obviously not. It would depend. If you wanted to kill yourself with such intensity that frustrating that desire would mean the rest of your life here would be a torment, then - perhaps - you might now have reason to kill yourself. But just having a passing desire to kill yourself does not entail that one has reason to kill oneself. So reasons to do things are not a disguised way of talking about our preferences, even though our preferences can inform what we have reason to do.

We have reason to avoid death. The evidence for that? The reason of virtually everyone says so.

That's the evidence that 2 + 3 = 5. The reason of virtually everyone represents 2 + 3 = 5. It is the evidence that this argument is valid:

1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q

The reason of virtually everyone represents it to be valid.

And so on. All appeals to evidence are appeals to reason.

And the reason of virtually everyone represents us to have reason to avoid death in all but the most extreme circumstances.

That does not mean that we do have reason to avoid death in all but the most extreme circumstances, but it is overwhelmingly good evidence that we do and the burden of proof is squarely on the person who would insist that we have no reason to avoid death in the main. And if all they can do in the way of defence is appeal to some bonkers worldview that has nothing to be said for it apart from taht it was believed by vikings or americans, then they have not discharged the burden.

Now, if our reason represents death to be something we have reason to avoid and only relents when our situation has become characterized by intense suffering, doesn't this imply that death is a harm, and a very serious one?

Typically, if we have reason not to do something it is because a) doing it will harm us, or b) because doing it will harm someone else, or c) because doing it is intrinsically immoral.

Which plausibly applies to our reason not to die? Well, not b, for my reason represents me to have reason not to die even when my death would not affect anyone else. So it is only plausibly a or c. I think c is fairly implausible as we generally do not have moral obligations to ourselves, but only to others. If I smack you in the face, that's wrong; but if I smack myself in the face, that's just stupid, but not immoral. Yet if I have reason to avoid death even when my death would not affect others, then if that's a moral reason it'd express an obligation to myself. Plus, in the unlikely event that I really do have a moral, rather than prudential, obligation not to kill myself, it would be because of the harm it would visit upon me. And so really 'a' seems to be the most plausible explanation of why we have reason not to kill ourselves and to avoid death.

So, we have overwhelming evidence that we have reason to avoid death in all but the most extreme circumstances, and we have good evidence that this is because death will harm us.
And we know that the deprivation account of the harm of death is false.
So, it harms us becasue it does something to us - it harms us because it alters our condition, not because it deprives us of anything.

1. The badness of dying (which isn't the exact same as being dead) is about experience. — DA671

Irrelevant, as my point is about death. Not the process of dying. Death. Death is a harm, as I have argued and as appears self-evident to the reason of most. Pointing out that other things related to death are also harmful only adds to my case, but does not challenge it.

The badness of death itself might only be about the loss of potential life. — DA671

No, that's the deprivation account again. And it is false.

I also think that you've made some hasty generalisations that aren't justifiable. "So-so" lives is a vague term that matters differently for different people. — DA671

By a so-so life I mean a life characterized by mild pleasures and pains and in which the balance of mild pleasure over pain is either slightly negative or even. If it was a company, it would be a company that was not turning a profit or was turning a slight loss and had no prospect of a profit in the future. If it was a company, a sensible business person would, other things being equal, close it down. But it is not a company, it is a life. And we have reason not to shut such lives down.

To extend the company metaphor, imagine that there is a huge company that is turning a slight loss, year on year. There is no prospect of it turning a profit - the accountants and analysts deliver the same verdict: this company is going to keep turning a slight loss. Yet its billionaire owner doesn't shut it down. Why? Well, what if closing it down would mean incurring huge redundancy pay-out costs? That is, it is losing $1m a year, but closing it would mean having to pay out $1billion in redundancy payments. Well, now it is in the billionaire's best financial interest to keep the company running, even though it is not making a profit. So, if a billionaire owns a giant company that keeps making a loss - and shows no prospect of making a profit - and yet the billionaire does not close it down, you can reasonably infer that something like the situation I just described is the case. That's the more sensible inference - more sensible than, say, inferring that the billionaire is stupid with money or just enjoys wasting it.

Our reason is the billionaire. It tells us to keep the company that is our life here going even when it is turning a slight loss and shows no prospect of turning a profit. What should we infer from that? We should infer that shutting our lives down will incur huge costs that far outweigh the costs we are incurring by keeping them going. That is, death is a harm of such magnitude that it eclipses all the harms we keep incurring by continuing living.

Learn to read and then read the op.