Therefore, if there is no disagreement possible over the nature of some concept, then there cannot be a philosophy of that concept. — Sinderion

Correct. Philosophical methodology is via argumentation. You cannot argue without having disagreement.

This is why there is no philosophy of tupperware, or philosophy of car washing. There just isn't enough to disagree over, and plus most everyone doesn't care to flesh out their disagreements.

However, not all philosophy acts as a handmaiden to another profession. There are independent philosophical studies.

Again, my links are only supplemental material. My position does not rise or fall solely on these psychological phenomenons.

You sir, seem to smuggle the idea that life must be carried out for the sake of it. — schopenhauer1

This. ugh :s

Then please go ahead and do so, or link to a post in which you think you've done so. — Sapientia

Pollyanna Principle

Hedonic Treadmill

Repression

Terror Management Theory

What? Prostitution?? Who talked about prostitution? — Agustino

BC did when he offered the solution of sex workers.

Considering honeybees have been seen as acting as if they had optimism and pessimism biases, we can at least apply a kind of behaviorist model of mind to them.

In other words, what Schopenhauer1 is saying is that the good in the world, the aesthetics, the sciences, the friendships, victories, reliefs, and pleasures are second-order and are structurally dependent upon a striving Will and the propensity to suffer. The question is whether or not the second-order flowers make up for the roots of striving and suffering.

When the flowers are not only contingent but also quick to pass, while the roots are necessary and permanent (until death), it makes one wonder if this is all worth it.

Shakespeare said it best with his To be, or not to be soliloquy in Hamlet.

If you're suggesting that I've committed a fallacious appeal to the majority, then you're mistaken. What I was getting at is that the testimony of all of those people does not count for nothing. It's circumstantial evidence, and evidence of a very large scale. So, you aren't justified to simply dismiss it, and, given that the counter-evidence against this circumstantial evidence that yourself and others have mentioned is insufficient to justify the rejection of all - or even most - of these testimonies, then your argument fails. — Sapientia

I am justified in dismissing it when it can be shown that people's own opinions of their lives are biased by rose-tinted glasses, hard-wired optimism and a pollyanna disposition.

Damage is not minimized by not giving birth to anyone. Extinction is one of the most damaging things that can happen to humanity. — Sapientia

There is very little redeeming features of the human race that I feel are worthy of consideration.

You can use that same reasoning to argue that we should let other people have children, and let those children live their lives unaffected by the actions of present-day antinatalists. (Of course, you and I both understand that they wouldn't technically be affected if they never exist, but I think that you catch my drift, bearing in mind what could be and what could cease to be a possibility). I also get that you don't argue in favor of enforced antinatalism, but the point still stands when you once again consider what could be if we were all antinatalists. It's hard to overstate just how catastrophic the consequences would be if you're not correct: we're talking about the extinction of humankind here. And what would otherwise happen? We'd continue to live on, through the good and the bad. Most people would affirm that they'd rather it be that way than not at all, and we should give them some credit. — Sapientia

An appeal to the majority proves nothing in terms of the truth of an ethical doctrine. We do not have a crystal ball, and this means that we ought not to mess around with things that affect other people. This doesn't mean we get to just do whatever the hell we want. This is exactly why engineers follow safety protocol when building things, so the damage is minimized. In the case of birth, damage is minimized by not giving birth to anything, and while this may lead to the "loss" of pleasurable moments, the minimization of severe pain is more important, since there really is no loss at all and those who are suffering immensely don't give a shit about the supposed pleasures of life.

If there was a society filled with 99 happy people and 1 miserable person, we would be concerned about the 1 miserable person. The 99 happy people would be rather unimportant once we saw the misery the 1 person was going through. How much happiness will make up for the Holocaust, or for the day-to-day misery of the animals being eaten alive?

The whole point here is that since you cannot predict how a life will turn out, and that life itself is filled with unfortunate circumstances, accidents, and general suffering, and that there is indeed a chance that something severe will befall the born, that having a child is not a rational nor moral thing to do.

When it comes to a judgement of birth, I tend to be passive and view it as something that is just a product of human emotions and ignorance. But nevertheless I do not view birth as something to be cherished.

Sex is not a necessity to exist. Just look at the ascetics, monks, and nuns who (supposedly) did not participate in the realm of sexual affairs. If you imprison someone but give them enough food, water, exercise, and sleep, they will not die.

Is it uncomfortable to abstain from any sexual gratification, particularly when you are bored and have nothing to do? Yes. Is it impossible to do so? I hardly think so.

So sex is hardly what I would say to be something that needs immediate attention.

But I do think that prostitution should not be illegal, at least not to adults (18+, or perhaps 21+). Prostitution without the use of contraceptives should be illegal, though, and generally prostitution should not be advocated as a legitimate business practice when there are safer alternatives. You want to sell your body? Go ahead, I won't condemn you but neither will I applaud you.

I was a late bloomer when I came to sexual gratification, and actually only began experimenting after I heard some of my school friends talking about it. Before then, I was more or less ignorant of the whole masturbatory process, although I am sure I would have found out by myself eventually.

Also another issue that might be relevant is the use of testosterone-impairments. Lowering the testosterone in men will lower the sex drive and aggression in men.

Why is kicking them out "bigoted, close minded and spreads fear"? Do not a sovereign people (Poles, Finns, Irish, Italians, Turks, Rumanians, Russians, Americans, British, French, etc.) have a right to say whether or not a million people from another part of the world can move in there, just because their own country has become a shit hole? — Bitter Crank

I should have expanded on my original point. Kicking them out because they are, say, Muslim is bigoted. Kicking them out simply because they aren't actually at your doorstep is just kind of kicking the can down the road. Someone has to deal with these refugees.

I would trust a refugee destination country more if they said, "Look: We don't really want you here, but we understand that you have been driven out of your own homes. We will admit you under two conditions: 1) You adapt to our lifestyle (rather than we adapt to yours) and 2) you will not become citizens here, no matter what. When your country gets itself together, back you go." — Bitter Crank

I can more or less agree with this. Unless the refugees do not desire to become citizens, they should be allowed to at least try to become one.

I'm glad that you acknowledge the subjectivity of it, but I suspect that you go further than I would with the appropriation part. I would say that some cases are more clearcut than others. If taken to extremes, we can more easily judge the value of a certain life - whether that be the life of an actual person or a hypothetical life. We can imagine a life of extreme misery, and in contrast, we can imagine a much better life. But there is a large grey area in between, and of course, although we can take certain factors into consideration, we don't have a crystal ball with which we can rightly appropriate the value of the lives of all of those within that grey area. — Sapientia

The fact that we don't have a crystal ball means that we probably shouldn't be messing around with stuff that affects other people.

The part in bold is what I think really matters. The former part could be conceded. It may well be the case that there is, in a certain sense, a greater and disproportionate amount of misery compared to fulfilment. But what matters is the effect that this has on the value of life. If the misery to fulfilment ratio was, say, 2:1, it doesn't follow that the detrimental effect that the former has on the value of life outweighs the beneficial effect of the latter. I don't think that you can successfully argue that that is true of every case, so I think that your position is untenable. — Sapientia

Regardless of the misery/value distinction, there is a threshold that once stepped over, the value of life drops significantly. In fact I would be willing to bet (based off of psychological and anthropological findings) that the value people derive from their lives is post hoc at best, that is, a derivation of relief that allows them to comfort themselves.

Again, since there is no way to predict how a person will end up, we probably shouldn't be experimenting.

In the end I believe it comes down to a subjective introspective appropriation of the value of existence. Can a life be made to be valuable? Possibly. Can a life be miserable and worthless? Possibly. Is an actualized valuable life worth more than an avoided miserable life? That is really what I perceive to be the underlying sentiment here: that there is a disproportionate amount of misery compared to fulfillment, and that no amount of pleasure will be able to compensate for the amount of pain, or the potential thereof, that a life will contain.

It's quite simple, really. In a hypothetical future scenario, someone is born and experiences valuable things out of life. This scenario can become an actuality, unless we go extinct. In a figurative sense, therefore, we can say that this someone would be missing out if they were never born and didn't subsequently experience those valuable things in life. Would they actually be missing out? No, because they were never born. Did I ever state or imply that they would actually be missing out? No. That's a straw man. — Sapientia

This is the use of counterfactuals to describe a potential, possible world, which is plausibly at least a component of our ability to conduct debates about modality.

Anyhoo, it's pretty easy to see, at least to myself (and others here as well) that the valuable things "missed" are not as important as the terrible things "avoided". There is nothing wrong with keeping people in non-existence.

And we can further use counterfactuals by arguing that a potential person "has" the right to consent to exist. Since they cannot consent, do not give birth.

Learned Helplessness

Yeah, no argument there. That's why you have to find something that makes up for the bullshit. Something to live for.

On aesthetic grounds, Plato's system is by far the more beautiful. If beauty were the standard of truth, as I am sometimes wont to think, then Plato's philosophy would be the truest. And it is further enriched and confirmed in its beauty by the Neoplatonists like Plotinus. — Thorongil

I do agree that Plato's metaphysics has a certain air to it. It is aesthetically pleasing but also almost mystical. Too bad I'm not a strict Platonist...I wish I could be, though! ;)

What is it about life that you find to be absolutely dreadful?

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death. - Schopenhauer

Let's talk sleep/unconsciousness/resuscitation via CPR or other means: if you are of the opinion that coming into existence is always a harm, is waking up from sleep or being resuscitated while unconscious undesirable?

This will obviously include the discussion of personal identity, but I assume that most if not all of us are willing to accept that personal identity is at least partly (if not entirely) composed of conscious awareness (a feeling of selfhood).

Going further, then, when one goes to sleep or goes into an unconscious state and then awakes, is the individual who wakes again the "same" individual?

If not, then the strict antinatalist seems to be in a tricky situation as it would seem as though they would be obligated to make sure they do not wake up again. For if they do wake up again, they will have created a conscious entity without its explicit consent; that is, they will have brought into existence an individual that would have otherwise stayed in non-existence.

What about CPR/other means of resuscitation? Can the strict antinatalist be okay with resuscitating unconscious individuals? What if they didn't want to be resuscitated?

If one answers that the probability of them desiring to be resuscitated is high, this contradicts the antinatalist's (presumed) position regarding consent in birth, for someone else could easily just say that the probability of the child enjoying their life and appreciating being born is high.

Perhaps the bullet ought to be bitten. Perhaps we ought to have little cards that tell passerbys whether or not they should attempt to resuscitate us.

This is doubtful. Why would it cause anxiety? I could understand curiosity maybe but not anxiety. What would there be to fear? — Sir2u

It would cause anxiety because anxiety is a defense mechanism that arises out of an overdetermination of possibilities. In reality, perhaps there need not be anything to fear. But the biological programming that we have makes it so that regardless of this, the lack of any antecedent raises alarm.

Right.

The modus operandi of Aristotelian philosophy makes more sense to me than the Platonist one. The metaphysics of the former also make more sense than the latter.

People let you follow every detail of their life on Twitter. I don't get why someone would do that. — Hanover

They need validation.

Basically Facebook derives a lot, if not most of its income by users clicking on advertisements. These advertisements are catered to the users by an analysis of their text-based updates, i.e. "going to the mall!", "dinner @ the breakfast club!", etc. Software programs "interpret" your posts and create a kind of custom advertisement scheme that caters to your perceived interests. However, there has been a decline for a while now in the amount of text-based updates, while the number of picture-based memes have been skyrocketing. This means that it is difficult for Facebook to accurately target the audience with advertisements, thus making it difficult for Facebook to earn money.

The billions - trillions of bits adds up to a lot of characterizing information which can be used to decide what advertisements for what product to serve. — Bitter Crank

This is why Facebook is facing a major threat with the decline of text updates and the rise of memes. Without text updates, no advertisements can be catered to the user.

David Benatar is credited with the origination of the term "antinatalism" as an analytic normative ethical position. As I have attempted to point out earlier, I believe this is to the fact that although there have been plenty of similar views held in the past, they are not of the "analytic" stripe; that is, they are not purely logical or analytic and require a certain pathos to reach their conclusion.

Because of this reliance on pathos, I believe Benatar knew that any kind of philosophy that advocated anti-birth would be ridiculed or simply rejected out of a sheer knee-jerk disgust or by an attempt to appeal to the positives of life. Thus, Benatar developed an all-or-nothing analytic argument to compensate for the lack of pure logical rigor in the alternative pessimistic literature, although he still appeals to the pathos, Continental-like philosophy when justifying his asymmetry.

Curiously, as I pointed out briefly earlier, Benatar hardly includes any of the European, more Continental-like (or even transcultural) philosophies when he produced his book "Life, Death, and Meaning", although he does include work by Hume and Schopenhauer.

Later in another book on antinatalism produced by Benatar and Wasserman, Benatar formulates another analytic argument, this time from the misanthropic stance: what if you give birth to Hitler?

Overall, it is admirable how dedicated Benatar seems to be regarding making antinatalism a forcible and persuasive stance, even if his argument(s) are not, under further analysis, perfect.

If you have not already read Cabrera's paper, I would recommend you do so.

Benatar is attempting to avoid the subjective calculus of life that his pessimistic predecessors advocated. This is why he made the asymmetry; it is a universal heuristic. Additionally, he recently was chief editor of a book on "analytic existentialism" which, interestingly enough, fails to include any pessimistic continental philosophers.

Not sure if that is something to be proud of... :s

Clearly, Benatar is at least consistent. He thinks ALL harm is bad, in the most absolute terms. This, to me is not manipulation so much as it is a very particular kind of view of what is ethically bad. Therefore, he comes up with the conclusion that even a pinprick is enough to disqualify procreation. — schopenhauer1

I am apt to agree with him that all harm is bad, but to say that the lack of bad is good and the lack of good is not-bad is question begging. Benatar claims his asymmetry is independent of the pain/pleasure calculus of the world, but this is plainly false; a world where there was an overwhelming amount of pleasure compared to pain would obviously be worth being born into.

Benatar has a position: antinatalism, and uses a nifty tool, the asymmetry, as a heuristic to claim that all birth no matter what is always immoral. To a person such as myself and to assumingly you as well who see the world as filled with suffering and the potential thereof, the asymmetry is merely icing on the cake. (Actually the asymmetry was my first introduction to antinatalism and originally convinced me). But for others, the works of Schopenhauer and co. are not going to convince many people because most people don't have the time, patience, nor do they give a damn to read them. So Benatar comes up with a heuristic that starts out from a pessimistic axiom and creates an argument that can supposedly be used universally.

And I applaud his work (it initially convinced me and led me to antinatalism), but a flawed argument is a flawed argument. In the end, it comes back to a subjective calculus of life, the same subjectivity that Benatar was attempting to avoid via his asymmetry.

I'd also like to broaden the discussion beyond Benatar's asymmetry. I just happened to get stuck in the weeds in terms of defending an interpretation of his asymmetry. Though it is one argument, I would also like to discuss the instrumentality of life, the circumstances of a non-ideal world, or Schopenhauer's understanding of striving. — schopenhauer1

I'm not sure what you mean by the instrumentality of life. Can you elaborate please? Do you mean that life has no cosmic purpose?

I agree with the non-ideal world idea: the world is inadequate the human psyche's needs.

I tend to like to use the concept of tanha rather than the Will.

As an aside, there have been times when I stumbled into a philosophical conclusion that changed my view on things. In the course of discussing matters of science, for example, I went from a position on the philosophy of mind, that can be characterized as emergentist of sorts in the scientific naturalist sense to at least entertaining notions of panpsychism. — schopenhauer1

It's all about property dualism bruh.

Well, welcome to philosophy. There is no a priori argument that lacks basic axioms/assumptions. No math, no dialectics on ethics, etc. — schopenhauer1

There's a difference between starting out with basic axioms to argue on and the manipulation of axioms to fit your needs.

I wouldn't see how he would. You have to know something exists, or at least its hypothetical existence to write about it, I would think. — schopenhauer1

What I meant was if the only pain that we knew of were little toe stubs and a headache every now and then, I wonder if he would have constructed his asymmetry. The asymmetry largely becomes rather absurd if there isn't an overwhelming amount of suffering that effectively cancels out the pleasure in life.

To put it another way, though happiness is good, depriving happy experiences is not ethically relevant (preventing the possible experiencer of happiness from becoming actual), but preventing harm is (preventing the possible experiencer of harm from becoming actual). — schopenhauer1

I would argue that if there is a potential for sufficient suffering, this cancels out the opportunity for pleasure. Pleasure, in both our views, is supererogatory. It is only when the risk (of suffering) becomes sufficient that it is not ethically justified to partake in a certain action.

Meh. Splitting hairs i say. Not really flawed so can't agree with that. — schopenhauer1

It is not hair splitting because it shows that Benatar has a goal in mind (to show that birth is immoral), and then proceeds to construct an argument that argues for this (cart before the horse).

If the world was not filled with excessive suffering, I wonder if Benatar would still have written his book.

Prevention of harm is absolutely good
- Preventing happiness is only relatively bad as you need to have an actual person for this to be realized — schopenhauer1

Yes, but if you are saying this as though you are agreeing with these premises, then I must only say that if the prevention of happiness is only relatively bad, then the prevention of harm is only relatively good.

I certainly think people might have the assumption that life is supposed to be there to teach lessons (for what I don't know- maybe some idealized death-bed scene where one is fully self-actualized in all that they learned from life or something). That I think goes with many people's justification for suffering. Somehow, they might say it is elevating as it teaches perseverance, so should be celebrated and thus more people should be born in order to have to persevere through life. Perseverance, along with happiness, and a few other principles or qualities thrown in there are the usual mix of reasons why it is deemed acceptable or good to procreate. — schopenhauer1

Usually this is in addition to a belief in a god and an afterlife. An eternity of blissful heaven with a omnibenevolent (?) god would seem to make the petty toils here on earth seem unproblematic.

If you want to split hairs over "not bad" and a longer version of what you said to the effect of we place more emphasis on the absence of pain and we consider pain before we consider pleasure, then in effect, the logic is the same. — schopenhauer1

I don't think it is splitting hairs, though. I think it is pointing out flaws where flaws exist. Benatar's asymmetry has been systematically misinterpreted and rejected by otherwise intelligent people, and may be because it is not entirely coherent itself. Unfortunately, Benatar is made out to be like the Jesus of antinatalism and so to reject Benatar's asymmetry is often seen as a rejection of antinatalism, which is not the case at all.

I do think he has a point though that since there is no perspective to even feel deprived, there is literally no harm done to anything by the possibility of happiness remaining not actual. However, since the possibility did not become actual, there is no perspective to even feel harm. This can be considered a good thing, as preventing actual harm from occurring is a good thing. — schopenhauer1

Schop1, again, this is falling into the counterfactual abuse and assuming a kind of anti-frustrationism/negative utilitarianism beforehand. If preventing actual harm from occurring is a good thing (for whom?), then preventing actual pleasure from occurring is a bad thing. What differs is how much emphasis we place on the duty to prevent pain compared to the duty to impose pleasure.

I'll tell you honestly that it is difficult for me to find the lack of pleasure to be a "bad" thing, because pleasure comes at such a high price (pain, etc), and the pain is more severe than the greatest of pleasures. But imagine a modal universe that is completely different from ours, in which those born don't even feel pain at all, ever. Dissatisfaction, boredom, misery, death, etc are all unheard of, it is all bliss and harmony. I would be surprised if you responded that there is no impetus to create another person. It may not be the looming feeling of guilt that is associated with creating a child that will experience pain, but ultimately I do believe that you will concede that abstaining from bringing at least one child into existence into this perfect, blissful world is kind of weird.

Although I agree with this partly, there are certainly cases in which people who were living life normally were thrust into conditions in which they could not endure.

There is a difference between confronting opposition and rising above in triumph, and just mucking around in mediocrity as most people do in life. Ultimately the pleasure that life brings is not enough to justify the pain that life also brings, despite what the television shows tell you.

However, the state of affairs where a new person could possibly exist and does not actually occur, means that the possibility of pleasure without it actually being experienced is not bad. This is unlike pain "not happening" to anyone being good even if there is no individual experiencing the pain "not happening" to them.

The asymmetry is that there needs to be an actual person for deprivation of pleasure to be bad. There does not need to be an actual person for the deprivation of bad to be good. It is simply "good" that no new person experiences pain. It is not bad or good if there is no new person to exist to experience good.

This also leads to the idea that during the procreation decision, one does not have a duty to create beings with happy lives, but one does have a duty to prevent beings who suffer. — schopenhauer1

Again, though, this falls into the counterfactual abuse. If there does not need to be an actual person for the deprivation of bad to be good, then there does not need to be a person for the deprivation of good to be bad. Benatar is putting the cart before the horse, i.e. begging the question. If you read Cabrera's paper on this, he shows how Benatar relies on a pessimistic outlook to validate the asymmetry.

You are correct, we have a duty not to impose sufficient harm upon another individual. But, I think you will agree with me that if we have a scenario in which we know (for sure, 100%, no doubt), that the person born will experience a single pain in their life (a pinprick) and then proceed to experience a limitless omega sequence of pleasure, we might feel the urge the have this child. In fact, we might even feel sad if we don't have this child, because we missed an opportunity. To not have this child because they would experience a pinprick would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

What this shows is that there is an asymmetry in the value we place upon pain and pleasure. If we use counterfactuals, the absence of pain is good and the absence of pleasure is bad, but we place more emphasis on the absence of pain. We consider the pain before we consider the pleasure. We do not take unnecessary risks. And so while the absence of pleasure may be a bad thing, the imposition of extreme suffering is an even worse thing, one that seems to completely over-rule the badness of the absence of pleasure.

Thus, the asymmetry heavily relies on a pessimistic outlook on life, in which life is filled with suffering (or the potential thereof).

Benatar uses the "not-bad" label for the absence of pleasure because it is a quick and handy heuristic, not because it actually reflects upon the reality of our ethical intuitions.

Revolutionary acts are designed to degrade the effectiveness of the regime by destroying specific parts of the government. Terrorist acts are designed to degrade the life of people in general. — Bitter Crank

This seems like an excellent point. To a certain degree, governments and the media can twist the image of reality to suit their needs, so that revolutionaries look like terrorists, and terrorists look like revolutionaries. Ultimately I think the best indicator of right/wrong is what you personally feel in your heart.

I'm all for virtue, but I think that as we go about reclaiming our traditional virtues, we need to clarify just what, exactly, is virtuous and what isn't. — Bitter Crank

Whatever brings about the most nostalgia... ;)

Agreed. Thus, the "asymmetry" of Benatar (which isn't really an asymmetry but rather a symmetry) depends on the fact that life is filled with suffering, or at least can be filled with suffering. When I abstain from jumping out of a two story building, it is because I am avoiding pain. The potential, unknown amount of pain avoided is more important than the potential, unknown amount of pleasure I may feel for the split second I experience a sensation of flight. Apply this to the "asymmetry" (symmetry), and you get that it is really all about a risk-assessment and a greater-emphasis being placed upon harm rather than pleasure. The avoidance of pleasure may be a bad thing, but the imposition of pain is an even worse thing.

This avoids the absurd conclusion that a pinprick voids a birth that would otherwise be filled with an omega-sequence of happiness.