No, it doesn't. You're being far too generous.

A parent ought want the best for their child. It follows that one ought improve the way things are. It does not follow that one ought not have kids. — Banno

How does that engage with the argument I made?

Oh do stop trying to derail this thread. Pure Bartricks baiting. You have nothing philosophical to contribute and you're not being at all funny either. My cat just brought in a half-dead bird. I had to take it outside and stamp it to death. That's about how funny you are. So, again, engage with the argument, or go away. I've got a bird to nurse back to health.

Zinger! I'd have gone with "you're dealing with bloody Durga mate" or some such. But 'of course you're not' is very good.

Bartricks :roll:
No problem to discuss here, moving on.
— Sir2u
:yawn: :up: — 180 Proof

I am not going to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.

That posted twice. Not sure why. Presumably the system recognized that it was sufficiently important to be worth reiterating.

And one can go the other way around if one likes. That is, let's assume that it is morally fine to procreate. Well, then that means there is no problem of evil for God.

For let's imagine that you only have the ingredients to make spaghetti bolognaise. However, this is a meal that, though far from James's favourite, is nevertheless one that he enjoys well enough. Is it okay for you to invite him over for dinner given that you can only serve him spaghetti bolognaise? Yes.

Now imagine that Susan also wants to invite James over and that she wants to cook spaghetti bolognaise. Unlike you, she has a larder full of food and could cook James the dish he most likes. But she just wants to cook spaghetti bolognaise. Is it okay for her to invite James over given that she is going to cook spaghetti bolognaise? Yes, surely. If it was okay for you to invite James over and serve him spaghetti bolognaise, then it is okay for her to do the same.

Thus, if it is morally okay for us to procreate - so, okay for us to invite (well, force) guests to eat spaghetti bolognaise - then it is morally okay for an omnipotent, omniscient person to procreate as well. She could change the world and make it a much safer place for its inhabitants. But then she could cook James his favourite dish. But she is not obliged to do so and does no wrong - does no injustice to James - if she serves him spaghetti bolognaise.

And so, in this way we can see that either there is a problem of evil - in which case it is wrong for us to procreate - or it is morally okay for us to procreate and there is no problem of evil.

Susan is the omnipotent, omniscient person. The desire to have James over for dinner is the desire to introduce new life into the sensible world. The incredibly hot curry that Susan wants to cook is the omnipotent, omniscient person's desire to leave the world to operate in its own way.

You are you. Susan has the ability to cook James anything. You don't. You only have the ability to cook the hot curry. Well, if it was wrong for Susan to invite James over and cook him the hot curry, then it is wrong for you to invite James over given you can only cook him hot curry.

So, it is wrong for you to procreate. It would be wrong for the omnipotent, omniscient person to procreate if, that is, she is not going to adjust the world. You can't adjust the world. So you ought not to procreate.

It's not relevant.

I have provided a new example, this time involving regular folk. Again then:

Susan wants to invite James over for dinner. Susan also wants to cook a particular dish - an incredibly hot curry - that James dislikes. She does not have to cook that dish - she has other things available, including things James really likes.

Well, she should choose which of those desires to satisfy. If she invites James over, she should cook him something he'll like, not something he'll dislike. Or, if she really wants to cook the hot curry, then she should do that and not invite James over.

Now imagine that you also want to invite James over for dinner, but the only ingredients you have in your cupboard are those that make an incredibly hot curry and nothing else. Well, you shouldn't invite him over then. Yes?

Another example: Susan wants to invite James over for dinner. Susan also wants to cook a particular dish - an incredibly hot curry - that James dislikes.
Well, she should choose which of those desires to satisfy. If she invites James over, she should cook him something he'll like, not something he'll dislike.

Now imagine that you also want to invite James over for dinner, but the only ingredients you have in your cupboard are those that make an incredibly hot curry and nothing else. Well, you shouldn't invite him over then.

What I'm saying is an omniscient omnipotent being cannot create a world of "oppositions/opposites". — Benj96

Again, I don't know what you're talking about. Yes they can. But what's the relevance? You're not really listening, are you? You're just saying stuff. It's a puzzle to me why you're saying what you're saying. It doesn't address anything I am saying. "Would you like sugar in your coffee?" "Without sugar there can be no free will. That is what you're overlooking". "Er, I just want to know if you want sugar in your coffee. Do you?" "I can't want something without also not wanting it. And free will is what sugar lacks. Though sugar provides free will, it does not itself have it. Coffee, on the other hand, is flawed by its own internal logic. Does the coffee view itself as sugar?" And so on.

Let's make it easier. If you like watching fires and if you like watching people dance, is it ok to throw a person in a fire and watch them dance and watch the flames?

To an omniscient, omnipotent person would their own existence be compatible with a "sensible" world ? — Benj96

I don't understand that question.

I genuinely do not know what you are talking about. You state that I have ignored free will. I do not know what you mean. I haven't mentioned free will. Why would I? I have also not mentioned granary loaves. There are all manner of things I have not mentioned. If you think free will is relevant, explain clearly how.

Do you understand the scenario I have described? There's an omnipotent omniscient person. Call them Tony. And there is a sensible world.

Tony does not want to interfere with the operations of the sensible world.

Tony wants to create new life and put it into that sensible world.

It is wrong for Tony to do both of those things. Yes? (If your answer to that question is 'no' then you don't think there's a problem of evil and my case is not addressed to you).

A being cannot be both omniscient and omnipotent. Being omnipotent means having free will to choose one's action at all times. Being omniscient means knowing what every future choice will be. Can't have both. — Real Gone Cat

I think that's false, but it wouldn't matter much if it were true, given the point I am making. Just imagine that we have an omnipotent and very knowledgeable person on our hands. The same applies.

But if they don't introduce life (conscious/sentient beings) into the world what capacity would such an inanimate world have for it would not even be aware that it exists. A word without an observer would be devoid of both meaning and its consequence: "good" and "evil" (concepts held by sentient things). — Benj96

I don't really see your point. There's an omnipotent, omniscient person. There's a sensible world. They - the omnipotent, omniscient person - like the world, They enjoy watching how things unfold in it. There's nothing wrong in that. There's nothing wrong, for instance, in enjoying how the flames of a fire dance about. But if you also enjoy seeing a person dance about, it would be wrong to throw a person into the fire and watch them dance about in it. Watch the dance of the flames, or watch the dance of a human, but don't combine them.

But if they don't introduce life (conscious/sentient beings) into the world what capacity would such an inanimate world have for it would not even be aware that it exists. A word without an observer would be devoid of both meaning and its consequence: "good" and "evil" (concepts held by sentient things). — Benj96

I don't really see your point. There's an omnipotent, omniscient person. There's a sensible world. They - the omnipotent, omniscient person - like the world, They enjoy watching how things unfold in it. There's nothing wrong in that. There's nothing wrong, for instance, in enjoying how the flames of a fire dance about. But if you also enjoy seeing a person dance about, it would be wrong to throw a person into the fire and watch them dance about in it. Watch the dance of the flames, or watch the dance of a human, but don't combine them.

Morality is built around the needs and desire of a society, — Sir2u

No it isn't.

But anyway, that's an absurd 'metaethical' claim, whereas my question is a normative one. Rookie mistake.
Me: "which way to the city centre?"
You: "A city centre is a collection of trees"

Oh well, that happens sometimes. — Vera Mont

My favourite colour is the colour I like most.

You're not addressing the question.

The omnipotent, omniscient person desires to leave the world to run in its own way.

They also desire to introduce life into the world.

Now, as any proponent of the problem of evil will agree, it would be quite wrong of them to satisfy both desires. That is, it would be quite wrong of them to introduce life into the world and then just let the world do its own thing.

If you think they'd be doing nothing wrong in satisfying both desires, then you simply do not think the problem of evil arises. But I am taking it for granted that it would be immoral, other things being equal, for an omnipotent, omniscient person to satisfy both desires.

Morally it would be fine for them to just leave the world to its own devices and frustrate their desire to introduce life into the world. Nothing wrong in doing that.

And most would accept that it would be morally permissible for them to radically alter the world so that it was a safe place into which to introduce life and to monitor the world's operations to make sure no one comes to any horrendous harms (thereby frustrating their desire to leave the world to run in its own way).

If that is correct, then my point is that our inability to change the world and make sure it does not visit horrendous harms on anyone we bring here implies that we ought to frustrate any desire we have to procreate.

That is, if the omnipotent, omniscient person decides to indulge their desire to let the world run in its own way, then the omnipotent, omniscient person ought to frustrate their desire to procreate. We are unable to affect how the world runs. Therefore we ought to frustrate our desire to procreate.

Yes, I did. What was it? — Vera Mont

See my careful explanation in my previous reply to you. It seems you missed the point of that one too.

By what authority do you hold and omniscient, omnipotent being to the moral standard imposed by society on ordinary mortals? You attribute superpowers to a character on whom you then place arbitrary limitations. You posit 'a sensible world' without defining 'sensible'.
Why set up an insoluble conundrum?
I can thumb my nose at God without the complications. — Vera Mont

Again, nothing you're saying has anything to do with anything I have said.

I have no idea how anything you are saying connects with anything I have said.

Again then: the omnipotent person wants to keep the sensible world operating as it does. The omnipotent person also wants to create new life. It is wrong for them to satisfy both desires. If they satisfy desire A - the desire to keep the sensible world operating as it does - then they ought not to satisfy their other desire, B - the desire to create new life. One or the other, not both.

With this, note, a proponent of the problem of evil - that is, someone who thinks the problem of evil demonstrates God's non existence - must agree. For if they think the omnipotent person can satisfy both desires and be doing nothing wrong in doing so, then they do not think there is a problem of evil.

All proponents of the problem of evil must therefore agree that the omnipotent person would be immoral if they satisfied both desires. One or the other. Not both.

Now, unlike the omnipotent person, we are unable to change how the sensible world operates. But what that implies is that we ought to frustrate any desire we may have to procreate.

Again: if the omnipotent person elects not to change how the sensible world operates, then they ought to frustrate their desire to procreate. Similarly then, if we are unable to change how the sensible world operates, we ought to frustrate our desire to procreate.

You seem to have missed my point entirely.

Imagine that Mary has two offers of marriage - one from John and one from Tony. So, she can pledge lifelong fidelity to John and she can pledge lifelong fidelity to Tony. And she can do both. That is, nothing stops her promising to be faithful to John exclusively and promising to be faithful to Tony exlusively.

Clearly it would be wrong for her to do both. If she pledges lifelong fidelity to John, then she ought not to pledge lifelong fidelity to Tony too, and vice versa. One or the other, not both.

So far so good. Now imagine someone else - Jennifer. Jennifer is already married to Ralph. So she is now unable to change the fact she has pledged lifelong fidelity to Ralph. Does her inability to change the fact she has promised lifelong fidelity to Ralph mean that it is now morally permissible for her to pledge lifelong fidelity to someone else? No, obviously not. It'd be as wrong for Jennifer to do that as it would be for Mary to pledge lifelong fidelity to both John and Tony.

Similarly then, the omnipotent person has the ability to satisfy both of her desires - her desire for the world to keep operating in the way that it is, and her desire to create life and make it live in the sensible world. But it would be wrong for her to satisfy both desires. One or the other. Not both. That is, either keep the sensible world operating as it does, but do not introduce life into it. Or introduce life into it, but change its operations so that it doesn't harm people to live in it.

We, by contrast, do not have those two options, for we are powerless to change how the sensible world operates. We are not, however, powerless to refrain from introducing life into it. Thus, we should refrain from introducing new life into it. If it was wrong for the omnipotent person to introduce life into it without changing it, then our inability to change it implies that it is wrong for us to introduce life into it as well.

It responds to the OP claim that if harms are not ante-mortem then they are post-mortem. It shows that it's a false dichotomy and that there is a third possibility. — Cuthbert

It doesn't because it would just qualify as another antemortem harm and would not be sufficient to account for the harmfulness of death.

It isn't coherent anyway - but I am putting that aside. I'll just give you this third option. The fact is that the harms that would accrue to you at taht point are trivial compared to the harm death does to you.

You consistently seem to miss the point. It's not about where the harms of deprivation occur. It's about their sufficiency.

If you appeal to harms of deprivation, they're inadequate. This can be easily shown. Imagine someone who won't be deprived of those things and ask yourself if death would still harm that person. ANd it will.

Now, it is not to the point to keep arguing that those harms - the harms I keep demonstrating to be inadequate - occur at this point rather than that. That's irrelevant. The point is they're insufficient

If death takes you to a much, much worse place - that'd do the trick. If you just keep appealing to harms of deprivation, then you're on a hiding to nothing, regardless of whether you locate their occurrence.

So, once more, it obviously harms a person to kill them, and it harms them even if it deprives them of nothing - hell, it harms them even if it benefits them by depriving them of some great suffering.

Now, if that's true, then you can't appeal to those harms of deprivation to account for death's harmfulness.

For an analogy: susan plans on going to the cinema. But she accidentally sets herself on fire and spends the evening writhing in agony in hospital. Now, the accident deprived her of a nice evening at the cinema. No question about that. But it would be manifestly absurd to suggest that 'that' is what the main harm of the incident consistent of, would it not?

Sandra planned on doing her accounts - a task she hates - but she too accidentally set herself on fire and spent the evening writhing in pain in hospital. Now, she was not deprived of anything worth having. But she suffered about the same harm as Susan, yes? That's because the main harm is the intense agony they suffered, not the harms of deprivation.

That's how things are with death too.

] Do I mean sufficient or necessary? Well, I used the word sufficient, didn't I. So what do you think? If someone says 'sufficient' do they mean 'sufficient' or 'necessary'?

It is sufficient to be innocent not to have freely done anything wrong.

This is what I said in the op:

To procreate is to create an innocent person. They haven't done anything yet. So they're innocent. — Bartricks

That's also sufficient. If you haven't done anything at all, then you haven't done anything freely.

Now, all you need to worry about is whether that's true. And it is true - obviously so.

So then next thing you need to worry about is whether innocent people deserve to come to harm. And they don't. That's also obvious.

And then you need to wonder whether subjecting an innocent person to a life here will mean that the person in question comes to some harm.

And it does.

Is it wrong to create some undeserved harm? Yes. Other things being equal: yes.

Nothing you are saying makes a blind bit of sense.

I have said numerous times what I mean by innocence. And it's nothing remotely similar to the claims you are attributing to me. It's surreal.

Me: it is sufficient to be innocent not to have freely done anything wrong

You: so, you mean by innocent 'capable of interacting with a snail'? Why not be clear like that?

Me: no, that's not what I mean and I can't begin to understand how you think those mean the same.i mean what I said.

You: but it is at least compatible with being innocent in your sense of the term that one is able to interact with a snail. And as snails are small and speak snailish, you are saying that innocent people are small and speak snailish. But I am agnostic on whether anyone can speak snailish, so your case is a bad one. Beep.

Me: nothing you are saying makes a blind bit of sense.

You: by a blind bit of sense I take you to mean two litres of carrot tears. Now, a snail will drown in carrot tears as you well know. So I think you have not improved your case, but conceded it. Boop.

Me: to be innocent is not to have done anything wrong. It doesn't get clearer than that.

You: I cannot grant that as I do not know what it means. Does it mean 'Paris is a place in my inner ear'? Or does it mean 'curried eels'? You see I only understand myself and sentences of my own, and so you need to write something that will prompt me to write a sentence that has the same meaning as yours. But as there is no relationship whatsoever between the meaning of your sentences and those I have to replace them with the chance of this occurring is vanishingly small. Biddle.

You seem to think any argument for antinatalism is the same argument. Once more, that is not my argument!

That confirms it

no it isn't.

Just because you have a hammer that doesn't mean everything is a nail.

My argument goes through even if life here - where life is understood to be the time between birth and death - is beneficial.

If I order a coffee and a doughnut and I am only given a coffee, then I have grounds for complaint. My complaint is not that the coffee is bad, but that I am owed a doughnut. You, presumably, think that's the same as saying the coffee's bad.

But that's not my argument. My argument is that innocent people deserve entirely harm-free happy lives that this world is not going to provide.

I am not arguing that this is a cruel world or anything like that. I am arguing that it is wrong to create an entitlement to something that you know will not be satisfied.

It is sufficient to be innocent that one has not done anything freely. And that's the case with a newly created person. The newly created person has not done anything freely.

And if a person is innocent, then they deserve no harm at all. Thus they deserve a harm free life. Which is not what they will get.

That alone implies antinatalism.

It gets worse though. For not only does an innocent person deserve no harm whatsoever, they also positively deserve a happy life. So they deserve a positively happy harm free life. Which is obviously not what they will recieve. Even a highly beneficial life will fall far short of the heavenly existence innocent people deserve.

You think innocent people do deserve to come to harm?

It is curious to me how you can possibly think the claims you made are equivalent to mine.

Bartricks: apples are fruit.

You: so you are saying there is an apple and necessarily apple is made of the letters of the word leap spelt wrongly with two ps. Leapp. So, necessarily apples leapp. That's what you are saying.

And leaping is something athletes do. So you are saying apples are athletes. But I am not sure about that. I think there may be some athletes who aren't apples.

The first premise of your 'innocence' expresses nothing I have said.

Again, you are not addressing the argument. Your third option isn't a distinct option, but even if it was it would not help. It's like distinguishing between harm suffered on monday and harm suffered on tuesday. The fact is that you are talking about antemortem harms and they are just not big enough to do the job. Relabel them as much as you want, that won't address the argument. They are insufficient. Why? Because we are harmed by death when they are absent. We are harmed by death when we are benefitted antemortemly! Again, don't relabel some inadequate harms 'point of death' harms and think that will solve anything. How?

You clearly don't understand the case I have made at all.

You haven't addressed the argument. Note, I have not denied that death visits ante morten harms on those it kills. I have argued that they are not sufficient to account for the harms our reason says death visits on us.

So, john has no goals. No plans for the future. And his life is not going especially well. Do I harm him if I kill him?

Obviously. Yet I have not deprived him of anything worth having. I have not frustrated any plans and he was mildly unhappy. So in terms of antemortem harms and benefits I have benefitted him! Yet I harmed him

If I harmed him - and there is no question I did - yet antemortem benefitted him, then the harm I did to him was postmortem.

No, quote me saying that.

This:

"Assuming part of us suffers after death . . ." — jgill

Is not a quote from me, is it?! I did not 'assume' such a thing. It's a 'conclusion'. Big difference.

Read the OP if you want to familiarize yourself with my argument.

Read the OP. If you are already convinced that death is harmless then your view is absolutely absurd and this thread is not addressed to you

To make a case for thinking that the harms are post mortem. That would then constitute some evidence that we survive our deaths. That is, it would provide us with insight into what death does to us. I didn't say we can't know what it does to us. I said we don't.
Try reading the OP.

You are just stipulating. We do not know what death does to us. Whether it ceases our existence or takes us elsewhere is an open question. Note my neutral definition of death in the op.
Our reason tells us to suffer almost anything to avoid death. That is evidence it harms us. You are simply ignoring that evidence in deference to your convictions

Why would God want a relationship with you? I don't think he would, so I think P1 is false.

When Sarah forms a relationship with utterly absurd William, then I conclude that Sarah is flawed, for William is an ignorant and morally flawed person and he seems beneath her.

Needless to say, we are ignorant and morally flawed people. Why on earth would God want a relationship with us? He would want 'not' to have one with us, it seems to me.

So killing someone doesn't harm them?

Also, note that I am taking for granted that death harms the one who dies. I was very clear in the OP about this. THe question is 'how' it harms us, not 'whether' it does. It does. There's no serious dispute that it does. So don't dispute it.

Did you lean on the keyboard?