Maybe "fictive" for "fiction"? For the rest, you seem to leave out reason, instead pivoting on arbitrariness, which would indeed tend towards nihilism. But there is reason, so while I find insight in your views, I cannot follow them to your, or any, conclusion. — tim wood

Reason appears to tell us that you can't get an "ought" from and "is".

I think reason sometimes amounts to a value system including the idea that we ought to be reasonable. Like the issue of weight loss I mentioned earlier. It may be good for your health to lose weight but should that compel you to lose weight.

I think one could join a religion because they like the music, architecture. poetry, the community and atmosphere. That may benefit their mental health but I couldn't do this and suspend my disbelief adequately.

And is this something that is learned, i.e. because we were taught to think about them as objective, and so could possibly be changed? Or is it something that is more or less psychologically hard-wired? — ChatteringMonkey

Also since some things rely on implicit values that almost everybody agrees to, these oughts might be very much equivalent to a factual claim. — ChatteringMonkey

Let's take homosexuality as in example. It seems to be a minority occurrence but that doesn't seem to entail it has less validity or value than the majority sexuality. It seems to be hardwired as well.

I don't think you can derive values from possibly hardwired behaviours and preferences and pit them against each other. Desirable and undesirable traits are probably somewhat hardwired.

I think the problem is not with identifying aspects of life we can improve but having the the justification of compelling other people to follow our values.

But still I believe that people including those that claim to be relativists treat values and social ideologies as more compelling than they are and use them to justify their own beliefs and actions..

Anyway my question to you would be, do you think we should get rid of morality all together then, since it is a fiction? And rely on what then? On people just getting along and acting rationally out of their own volition? — ChatteringMonkey

I think we have to make weaker moral claims and these would lead to moderation in behaviour hopefully.

I don't know if a tyranny has existed based on agnosticism and a belief in the fallibility of values.

Laws and morals need not be true and objective to be 'lawfull', their force can be derived from that fact that we agree on them. — ChatteringMonkey

It depends on why you are agreeing on something. Obviously consensus doesn't equal right. Would people agree to agree to rules that they accepted were completely made up and not metaphysically binding but only pragmatic and a tool for some kind of social cohesion?

For example I don't think an atheist would follow religious rules regardless of their pragmatic or utilitarian value.
I believe people think there is a deeper validity to concepts like human rights and prohibitions against stealing and killing than just being pragmatic tools.

Under the guise that they are lawful, or truthful? — ChatteringMonkey

That is a good point. Possibly both. But value statements have law like or "ought" like qualities.

People say things like "You ought to lose some weight". You can get the impression that there is an ideal weight that we ought to be aiming for.
If you believe this is true than you may treat it as lawful.
So I suppose people may have to treat a claim as true before treating it as a law or an "Ought".

But I think the person delivering the claims is acting like they are factual and that they should be obeyed.

I like the term "reifying" or "reification" that treat something conceptual or controversial as concrete.

I don't know who parents think is responsible for suffering.

The only way human suffering can occur is by creating more humans.

There is a lot of suffering.

I think a child of a parent is in the ideal place to judge the ethics of the actions that created them.

If there was a rape you wouldn't ask the perpetrator what they thought about the ethics of their action as measure of its morality.

We can all judge what we feel about our parents in bringing us into existence here. And you can't refute this analysis because the individual is the final arbiter of their moral stance.

If you don't respect the sanctity of the individual then there is no reason for them to respect you.

I think the parent child dynamic is problematic.

The child exists solely because of her parents desires and so this is a very unequal one sided relationship.

This is not like adopting a poor child and lavishing them with gifts and affection. You are making someone exist because of your desires and not for their benefit.

I have compared this to a Stockholm syndrome scenario. The child becomes grateful to the parent without realising the nature of the relationship and the imposition.

I think the conclusion is wrong though. Because other people are unhappy, I should be too, thereby increasing unhappiness? Seems to be the wrong way to go about it. Moreover poverty is in decline across the world(...) — Benkei

I find the context of the reported happiness problematic.

You mentioned the alleged odds of a child being happy using one country but that is not representative of all countries. Nevertheless I found articles like this on The Netherlands:

https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/45/one-in-12-young-people-have-poor-mental-health

You say poverty is decreasing but there is still masses of poverty and homeless children. Even if are going in a positive trajectory that doesn't mitigate the dire problems people face now.

I am not saying people ought to be unhappy but I don't understand how they could be happy and very happy if they saw and heard stories of modern tragedies. There is the phenomena of "depressive realism" which shows that people with depressive symptoms make more accurate judgements.

But also I do not think reports of happiness justify creating a child. Happiness is not a measure of morality. You have to look at the context and nature of the happiness.

I don't think one person should have to suffer to keep the species going. If you believe that why don't you swap lives with someone living on a trash heap in Nigeria?

So on average it makes perfect sense to have kids in the Netherlands as it's extremely likely they will be happy.

EDIT: https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/27/one-in-five-dutch-adults-very-happy

Only 2.6% is unhappy. Those are excellent odds. — Benkei

Most of the countries with the highest reports of happiness are wealthy democratic western countries. This wealth is partly or even largely based on exploiting people in poorer and less democratic countries.

I don't think one persons happiness justifies another persons unhappiness or hardship. There are on average 800,000 suicides a year. Billions of people live in poverty.

There are around 140 million orphans in the world.

"According to UNICEF, almost 10,000 children become orphans every day. According to internationally accepted figures, there are at least 140 million orphans in the world. Given the fact that there is so much compelling evidence showing that there are millions of more orphans not included in official statistics, there is no doubt that this number is actually much higher."

https://insamer.com/en/2020-orphan-report_2928.html#:~:text=According%20to%20UNICEF%2C%20almost%2010%2C000,million%20orphans%20in%20the%20world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report


I think happiness is inappropriate given these kind of facts and I don't want to coexist with suffering people or be involved in their exploitation.

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. — Echarmion

Can you give an example?

There is a difference between criticizing or discussing individual parents or categories of parents and critiquing the ethics of parenting for every parent.

People don't have a child in a bubble we are all part of an interconnected world community where our choices effect other people. Most people you raise antinatalism with are quick to talk about how happy and successful their children are. I am concerned about all children and all people not just the successful ones.

Here in the UK recently actor "Christopher Eccleston has said lockdown made him realise how 'privileged' he is as he pledged to help the homeless by becoming a Big Issue Ambassador."

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.

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 parents 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 perhaps gave their input. — Echarmion

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?

Even if there were souls in another realm wanting to be birthed there is no evidence of them forcing parents to reproduce.

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. — Echarmion

I think one of the key arguments or concerns from antinatalists is that people should make more careful parenting decisions but if people do not acknowledge the degree of suffering, exploitation, responsibility and other things in existence then they are going to make ill informed decisions. I think most antinatalists would be very pleased if people simply made better reproductive decisions. The problem is the current lack of real effort to question the ethics and ramifications of having children.

I think the problem with moral arguments is that they can be overruled by action.

The benefits of a religious or supernatural morality is that it could be enforced in the afterlife by some kind of afterlife justice.

So for example I think it is pointless saying The Holocaust was wrong after it has happened in the sense the it does not prevent the Holocaust and the tremendous suffering. But with an afterlife justice or Karma we can believe the victims will have another chance and the perpetrators will be held accountable.

But without the scenario people can just do things that nature allows regardless of the force of moral arguments. So I don't think having a child resolves the moral arguments.

Justifying actions seems to be an after the fact superficial add on that becomes irrelevant after the action has taken place.

I think not doing something because of moral concerns is the probably most effective form of morality in the sense that you didn't cause anything to happen.

That said not intervening could be seen as unethical however I think causing harm is more problematic than not intervening in it.

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. — Echarmion

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?

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.

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.

This is a post that I made on another forum which I think highlights how I think parents don't consider the suffering they are causing or their link to the suffering going on around us.

Someone asked me that on another forum. "Why do you say every child is harmed by being born" I responded..

"How is a child not harmed?

The most prominent thing is that we have to face our own mortality and die.

The next and biggest category is an array of illnesses from the common cold to migraines and including nausea, an array of cancers, arthritis, dementia, depression and anxiety, schizophrenia and so on.

Then there is work which a lot of people do not enjoy.

Unemployment is also unpleasant linked to things like poverty increased risk of physical and mental illnesses. Poverty is also a hazard for those in work.

Next we have loss and bereavement, relationship breakdowns, bullying and social problems.

Then there is the unpleasant sides of embodiment like feeling too hot or too cold, sweating, itching, general aches and pains, blisters and other irritants.

Then there is existential worry, including fear of death, meaninglessness, and other cognitive sources of anxiety.

There are lots more examples if you need them."

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. — Echarmion

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

If you want to dissuade someone from entering a burning building it is usually sufficient to point out that there is a fire going on.

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.

I think the issue of non-existence in these debates is not problematic like it is made out to be.

For example people claim things like that we should "save the planet" so it is inhabitable for future generations. It wouldn't make sense to ruin the environment just because you thought the currently non-existent generations should have no input into your actions. It would be implausible to claim you could not predict the effects of your behaviour on currently non existent situations and people.

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.

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.

It is one of an array of things which are normally thought to be unethical in moral systems. We are not supposed to use others as an object or means to our ends. We are not supposed to do things that effect others without their consent. We are not supposed to expose other people to harm

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.

If meanings were in the words we’d understand a foreign language as soon as we heard it. Meaning is generated within.

This is why I believe that any platitude about the “power of words” is magical thinking and censorship a fool’s errand, because words have as much power as any other guttural sound or mark on paper. Meaning, and any feelings derived from this process (arousal, stress, fear, laughter), is entirely self-generated. In theory, one could learn to control this process and realize his power over language. — NOS4A2

I think that words seem to refer to things and in this sense hearing a word or sentence etc will take us from the mere words to a dynamic in the external world or the internal emotional world.

You could say words internalize the external. They have a strange "power" because we use words and other symbols to create technology, art and do science.

But it seems like it must our brain/mind that is creating and manipulating meanings in reverse of what I said first words could also be said to externalize the internal.

It is just a strange dynamic. In some religions if not most God was the entity that gave us language and imbued it with meaning. In this sense it is like meaning requires an authority. Hilary Putnam argued against internalism by using the idea that we need experts to resolve the meaning of words.

I just find the topic elusive.

This is the feature and not the bug. It is the arbitrariness of a symbol that allows it to be the signifier of any state of interpretance. It is how thought and speech start off with a detachment from the world, and so become capable to referring freely to any possible world, any possible variety or division of experience. — apokrisis

The problem imo is how experience attaches itself to an arbitrary symbol.

It seems to me that experience comes before symbols. But then with language it has thousands of words and numerous contested meanings.

Noam Chomsky proposed an innate mental/brain module to to grasp language (universal grammar). He seems to think this is required prior to understanding any language.

But critics of Chomsky have pointed out the lack of similarity between languages and their grammar. It would be great of you could easily pick up a language due to some consistent rules.

In Chomsky's defence it seems that there must be innate cognitive modules to explain things like children's swift ability to learn any languages.

One does not learn a language simply by looking around. — Banno

How do you know this?

Babies look around a lot before speaking. They also touch things and suck them etc. They are extremely curious. It seems like they are processing a lot of information prior to language.

Congenitally Blind children can become completely fluent in a language but they tend to learn later than other children. However touch (The haptic sense) is very influential. I think we all use all of our senses like this. For example people who have a congenital pain defect have to be taught to understand the implications of pain sensations. So the word pain gains meaning from experience here.

But who would understand you? — Banno

You would understand yourself. That seems to be to a large extent reality. We communicate with ourselves constantly before communicating with others.

There is a type of word that has "inherent" meaning, onomatopoeia. — Echarmion

I think that the letters M O O that make a word like moo are not identical with the sound but fit the conventional pronunciation assigned to those letters.

In the case of pictures they are similar to what the writer wants someone to understand. However I don't know how hieroglyphics create sentences or information.

This seems to be basic strategy in philosophy of language to make meaning start with something simple like basic colours, sounds or pictures or pointing and build out from there. But I think this strategy is limited to a small segment of language.

For example how would you represent "Yesterday" in a picture or "The Unconscious".

I am not opposed to this strategy but what puzzles me is how meaning does not seem to reside in letters, words and sounds. I was thinking about this in relation to trying to learn a new language and the words seem completely arbitrary unless they are historically related to your own language.

I don't know what religious/esoteric people think about pleasure.

I grew up in a fundamentalist cult situation and they often referred to a lot of basic pleasures as "Worldly pleasures" manmade pleasures like television and concerts counted as this. However a lot of these groups do not seem to have a problem with the pleasure derived from food and in some cases alcohol.

However non materialist philosophies might have a transcendent role for pleasure.

You can probably distinguish between different pleasures such as pleasure from music, lust, schaden freude and masochism. Utilitarian's ended up going down this route in order to have a difference between base pleasures and higher pleasures. But then this adds a value judgement on top of the initial judgement that something is a pleasure.

Pain is an indicator that more effort/attention is required than predicted. How ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ this is depends on a perceived capacity to make the necessary adjustments. — Possibility

Informative pain is like the pain of a broken leg which tells you tissue is damaged and forces you to take weight off the injured limb. In a way this kind of pain makes us want to turn it into pleasure. Reducing pain can cause pleasure like the sense of relief I feel when nausea goes a way.

But pleasure only seems to inform us that we are in a state of pleasure as opposed to telling us if our body is in good health or that we are taking the right course of action. In this sense pleasure seems hedonistic being pursued simply for itself not its instrumentality.

Your picture seems to be saying we are being coerced by evolutionary forces.

I think the problem with evolutionary explanations is that they are often not complete. For example having legs is beneficial for survival but that doesn't tell us how they came about. Pleasure may encourage survival but that doesn't give it a causal explanation.

I feel like the experience of pleasure includes a value judgment about the sensation itself regardless of what causes it. But unlike Ayn Rand I don't think that pleasure indicates somethings rightness.

I don't think pursuing pleasure is simply an indication of somethings survival value (see food and obesity/alcohol drugs etc) Resolving my own initial question I feel that the sensation of pleasure is a good. Out all things that exist I would class pleasure as a good phenomena (intrinsically valuable) and pain as a negative phenomena (undesirable.) They might mislead us or help us but I think the basic psychic response is dichotomous (except maybe for sado-masochists).

Here are some things Ayn Rand said on this topic:

"The physical sensation of pleasure is a signal indicating that the organism is pursuing the right course of action"

"The achievements of his own happiness is mans highest moral purpose."

(Ayn Rand seemed to think that is was immoral not pursue personal pleasure and that somehow this would have a trickle down effect and inadvertently benefit others. However her detractors would claim altruism has a more positive effect in that helping others will benefit you in the long run)

I think there are facts such as 2 + 2 = 4 that do not rely on our emotional response to them.

I agree that pleasure is motivational but it seems not to value facts.

That said I think pain is good indicator of something being wrong (whatever wrong means) I have focused on pleasure here but ironically pain seems to be a more powerful informant.

Consequently, if you accept the notion that excellent ideals (agape love) can be more perfect than physical reality, then you could say that there is "a value higher than physical pleasure" : Self-seeking Hedonism vs Self-restraint — Gnomon

I feel that any positive language like "excellent" equates with pleasure. The whole notion of positivity seems synonymous with pleasure.

I think it is hard to transcend our bodily needs like hunger, thirst and lust. It seems that a lot of progress has been made in societies where intellectuals can work without the threat of hunger or thirst.

It might be that we need to reach a certain state of pleasure or equilibrium/stability before we can start to explore issues unrelated to immediate survival.

I don't know whether pleasure is motivational or demotivating. (Carrot versus stick) personally I feel that not being depressed or pessimistic may lead to me being more creative. May be pleasure just makes you care about anything...and not give up.

pleasure, despite the claims of hedonism, doesn't possess an intrinsic value of its own - it's simply there to keep us coming back for more, all the while promoting behavior that's good for the success of the species in the game of life. — TheMadFool

A lot of species reproduce without the aid of pleasure. Sexual pleasure is most pronounced in humans but not necessary in things like plants and fish. Sexual pleasure has lead to a huge proliferation of pornography which in itself does not lead to reproduction. Pleasure seeking seems somewhat divorced from survival in this sense.

But morality, which is most pronounced in humans seems to be most concerned with welfare/pleasure.

Utilitarianism which talks of "the greatest good" seems pleasure based also.

I feel like we need to transcend pleasure as a source of motivation or as an end goal. I am not sure why exactly. But facts don't seem to have any relation to pleasure. The evolutionary picture has been seen at odds with facts. Are our beliefs motivated by survival and success or unemotional reason?

Personally I don't know what to pursue. Should I pursue pleasure or some other kind of state of enlightenment?

I don't think it is necessary to have a concept of property.

I see no reason why you cannot use resources and have a place of shelter without making the extra claim that you somehow are metaphysical entitled to them to the exclusion of everyone else..

How many wars have been based on asserting claims over territory?

I have no need for things after I die so I recognise what in have now is inevitably temporary and I am in a position of stewardship.

It has got to the stage now where a tiny piece of land in London is considered worth millions of pounds and more and more aspects of life are assigned a monetary value. There is intellectual property. You can can own Radio waves and so on. But most wealth is in the hands of a few.

When I say that people necessarily own themselves, i.e. necessarily have rights over themselves, I don't mean that those rights are necessarily recognized by all civilizations. To have a right and for your society to enforce that right aren't the same thing. — Pfhorrest

The act of creating someone undermines their will. We are here through someone else's desires not by autonomy. I think the manner in which life is created goes against a notion of duty. In a sense we are simply surviving. I don't think we can get "ought's" or "duties" from rationality. Notoriously Kant thought we should never lie even to an Axe Murderer.

But there are complex mechanisms now to aid what is only our temporary survival.

Society is like creating a huge factory to crack an egg. It is impressive but the end goal is only temporary survival. The notion of stewardship recognises our temporary interaction with the world and our need to preserve it for others. The only reason I advocate stewardship is because it seems like vandalism to destroy the world if more people are going to inhabit it

This is very similar to but subtly distinct from the matter of property rights — of not acting upon something contrary to the will of its owner (including a person's body, which they necessarily own, i.e. necessarily have rights over), which lies in the traditional intersection of perfect duties and procedural justice — because it does not rely on any assignment of ownership, but only on experiential introspection; in much the same way that synthetic a priori knowledge is very similar to but subtly different from analytic a priori knowledge, in that it does not rely on any assignment of meaning to words, but only, again, on experiential introspection. — Pfhorrest

There is a problem with the status of self ownership.

Slavery has been prolific throughout history. The are dictatorships and theocracies with few if any individuals rights and many women and girls are controlled by male relatives. Children have limited autonomy from parents. Suicide has been illegal in many places throughout time and so on.

So self ownership does not seem to be the default. But it was the basis for Locke's theory of property. He also talked about one's own labours. However one's own labour requires exploitation of the environment and resources and you can question what justifies that.

I think the problem I have with the property is the reification of property as something someone has some kind of metaphysical justified innate claim over rather than a tool for resource distribution. But if there was an infinite amount of resources we would not need the notion of property which is why it seems reliant on scarcity which then means competition and exploitation of limited resources.

We seem to be the only creature that makes such heavy claims on resources and space but I don't think it is sustainable and breeds deep inequality. Or maybe nature is on a self destructive cycle?

If "property" as being used in this thread means "a physical object" or "land" than I suppose that's the case. But I thought something different was being addressed. — Ciceronianus the White

I think they mean property claims. The law formalises peoples claims about things like rights, obligations and ownership.

You may disagree with the law all you like. But there is nothing else which will define property and establish rules governing it, which may be enforced by any authority. — Ciceronianus the White

I don't think the law justifies property. To me it just seems that the law allows use of force to dominate a thing. And the law can act in the same manner as a "thief" using force to take something.

But the law often cannot resolve ownership disputes and different countries and different groups are in a state of perpetual conflict over resource and rights.

I think we should rely on a notion of stewardship as opposed to just accumulating wealth, exploiting resources and owning things.

I don't think "Property" and "own" are necessarily meaningful.

For example can you own something once you are dead? In this sense owning something does not attach you to the thing in an compelling way.

Also you can "own" a car but it can been taken by someone and you may never a see it again.

The legal status of property seems to mean that law enforcers will defend something that is claimed to belong to you. But I don't think the law is a compelling force and we can just agree to disagree with it. It is somewhat arbitrary and partly due to social agreements.

One issue raised about limits to ownership is whether you can do anything you like to something you are considered to own. But there are often restrictions here such as you cannot modify a historic listed building or burn down your house. I think this highlights a problem with the concept of ownership where it leads to exploitation and not stewardship of a precious resource. The law fluctuates on these issues.

I think there is a problem that we have a very complex system of of ownership and financial value which I don't think is justified which I would now compare to a complex religious system which can be effective but is not based on truth.

I think that it not at all clear how to define consciousness before attributing it to things. How you define it will probably determine how widespread you believe it is.

Defining a crime is controversial. Inequality, poverty, exploitation, religious indoctrination, excessive wealth, environmental damage and many other things are crimes in my book and create societies which are dysfunctional and the vulnerable are penalised

Unfortunately it is an issue of power. Europeans have quite a liberal and progressive justice system. There are always people fighting to make a more humane society.

I am from England but I have often despaired about The States justice system.