I didn't think I had a conclusion? — James Riley

It was that antinatalists only worry about the greatest good for the greatest number (classic utilitarianism).

But now that you mention it, is the antinatalist only concerned with heading off the suffering of one? And if more than one, then why? Wouldn't aggregation be a consideration, even if not utilitarian? Or maybe even then? — James Riley

No, while there is debate about the "Big Red Button" and the "Benevolent World Exploder Argument" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_utilitarianism#:~:text=Some%20replies%20to%20the%20benevolent,perhaps%20in%20a%20worse%20way.) Actually, our guest speaker, David Pearce even wrote about this, so you may want to ask him more his thoughts.

That would be a caricature of the most extreme and not a majority view (as far as I know). For example, my antinatalism is more based on a deontological foundation whereby one does not cause unnecessary harm while still respecting the dignity of the persons involved. Dignity is important here because the harm isn't just some abstract thing we are trying to prevent but is inhered/experienced-by an individual person. Once born, this person has interests, goals, fears, etc. One would be overlooking this individual by simply killing them off for a "greater goal". Thus, preventing unnecessary harm has to be coupled with dignity for morality to be actually "moral". So YES harm prevention is a large part of it, but the level at which morality takes place is the individual, and recognizing them qua them, and not as some vehicle for a greater good.

Thus, killing people off would be violating ANs (my conception at least) own morality of viewing people having some dignity. One of the major reasons for AN is the decision to have a child is overlooking the lifetime of harm that will occur for that child. Also, it is assuming that because YOU believe life's challenges/overcoming-challenges game is good to play another person should have to play this game too. It's a game that would be inescapable except for severe self-harm, something people can't do very easily without fear of pain and the unknown. Thus, killing a person for some greater good is in the case of people "already born" overlooking that person's dignity whereas creating a new person, would be violating the dignity of a future person by overlooking the fact that one is putting that person in "harms way" and forcing them into a nearly inescapable "challenge/over-coming challenge" game.

Also, as just another AN viewpoint, death itself can be considered its own harm, thus causing death is itself causing unnecessary harm to an individual.

Okay, I need to put that in my pipe and smoke it for a while. Initial thought, though, is that it seems to address unborn child issue, but when it comes to suicide, it's placing the dignity of the individual who is doing the choosing over the dignity of the individuals who are left behind (like the old saying "Suicide doesn't stop the pain; it just transfers it).

Initial thought, though, is that it seems to address unborn child issue, but when it comes to suicide, it's placing the dignity of the individual who is doing the choosing over the dignity of the individuals who are left behind (like the old saying "Suicide doesn't stop the pain; it just transfers it). — James Riley

AN wouldn't necessarily have a theory of suicide, that would have to be part of the person's overall ethical theory. So, in the case of the dignity variation, one is choosing one's own time/place to die, and one wants to do it, thus one isn't violating one's own dignity. Are you using other people for this act? No. Well, then it is permissible. It is indeed causing harm to others, but its debatable if it is "unnecessary" and it isn't violating dignity. So it would be something to consider, but perhaps not totally a moral consideration as much.

However, you can make a case that suicide is causing "unnecessary suffering" to other people, but I'm not sure if it passes the dignity test. It is forcing others to deal with something, but does it meet the threshold of "force"? That is a harder question. I do see dignity as a threshold and analog of degrees rather than digital binary violated/not violated. For example, if a kid was drowning and I had to wake a lifeguard up to save the kids life, I have slightly "harmed" the lifeguard, and "forced" him to wake up, but I don't see that as violating the lifeguard's dignity. However, if I was to force the lifeguard to only teach lifeguarding lessons for the rest of his life because I thought the greatest amount of good would come from that for the greatest number of people, that would be violating the lifeguard's dignity.

Im sorry this is a totally unrelated post, but on the question posed, I do have some personal experience to share. When I was a child in ther 1960s I was already very concerned about the environment before the whole global warming thing became fashionable, we had other names for it back then, but the projections convinced me the next 60 years or so are going to be very unpleasant and I chose not to have children.

While that was a sensible choice for them not to have been conceived, it appears now at least, it leaves me in the bizarre situation of having no family (all my family reached the same conclusion and are dead) and no one to inherit from me. This has become the biggest problem for me in my life, and I still dont have a resolution to it after years of trying to figure out what to do about it. Currently my life savings just default to whatever the state decides to do with them, I could find no better choice, because lawyers, on learning I have no blood heir, dont want to be responsible for managing my estate when I die. I didnt think this was going to be such a big problem, I thought, eventually I could find a lawyer, but aftertrying for a very long time, then covid happening and trying even harder, I still havent found one. It was rather unexpected.

I guess I'm conflating you with 180 and his statement about consistency. I then ran off on speculating about what might be more or less consistent, and this was based on the notion that negation of suffering could be placed in a calculus of more or less. If it's not that simple, and graduations of dignity are thrown in the mix, then that is what I need to put in my pipe.

As a piece of tobacco I'll be throwing in the pipe, a parent might deem the suicide of a child to be an insult to their dignity, the fruit of their very loins (i.e. themselves). They might be wrong on that, but that is an argument.

You can always adopt. You can even leave your estate to Gretta Thunberg or the like.

well Im 60, lol, so adopting is not sensible, and I cant leave my estate to anyone because I cant find an attorney to make the trust. I tried churches, and they wouldnt reply to my requests for help either, and I tried finding college kids to finish helping through school, and they were unable to see their needs beyond next months bills so I rather had to give up. So it just goes to the state.

I don't know where you live, but generally you don't need a trust. You just write a Will and say within it what you want done. It can be holographic but there are a metric shit ton on the web, specifying the jurisdiction you live in. If there is anything left after expenses, it goes where you said you want it to go.

On the other hand, leaving it to the state is not so bad. I'd rather the state tax and spend, than rely on the Plutocracy to decide where they want to throw their scraps.

all those sources still require me to specify an executor. Now I know this is a very strange reason to have children, and probably it isnt a reason to have children or your own, but I would hope other people who feel the same way about the future of the world dont make the same mistake as me and get themselves involved somehow with a family who can help before they reach my age, and thats the only reason I bring it up.

An executor will milk the estate for expenses of execution. If you don't have anything worth it, then yeah, you'll not find one. But if you have anything worth the executor's time, then it should not be a problem finding one. Name the homeless guy down the street under the bridge. The court can't make him do it if he doesn't want to. But it it's worth his time, he will. Hell, the court might even help him.

You could always give away all you've got before you die. Timing is key.

Anyway, you are right. It's no reason to have kids.

what happens is that the people I ask all want me to start paying their bills. An executor would also be responsible for me if I become incapacitated, and I just cant trust the person sleeping under a bridge etc to do that, and it seems better just to let the state appoint a probate officer. Its actually one of the associated reasons I am planning to leave the USA lol, I dont think it would be a problem in other places. Well thats me for the day. All the best )

Is the lack of consent offset by the fact that whatever you bring into existence has the option of going back to non-existence (suicide)? Also, if I slip five dollars into someone's pocket without their consent, have I harmed them?

No, the issue is, that other people who do not accept suicide as a solution are left to clean up the mess afterward, and that is something Schopenhauer did not consider.

Is the lack of consent offset by the fact that whatever you bring into existence has the option of going back to non-existence (suicide)? Also, if I slip five dollars into someone's pocket without their consent, have I harmed them? — RogueAI

I would say it revolves around dignity (which consent and forced actions can fall under) and causing unnecessary suffering. Was putting someone into existence causing unnecessary suffering on someone else's behalf? If so that person's dignity was violated. Is someone causing another person to play a game (i.e. the game of being presented unwanted challenges and overcoming them) on someone else's behalf? That person's dignity was violated.

Putting the five dollar bill in someone's pocket is not violating dignity, even though it was without consent. The force was not to the threshold where the dignity was violated.

Actually Schopenhauer was not an advocate for suicide. He sympathized with it, but was against it as a "way out". Schopenhauer thought that suicide was the Will "willing" against itself and thus still willing. The only "way out" for Schopenhauer was living an ascetic life and denying the will to a point of enlightenment or salvation from Will's grasp or effect.

yes, but like most others on the topic, he only considered the impact to personal existence, lol. After a while it gets a little old having to say that to philosophers and it gets depressing actually.

No. By that logic one could do anything to someone without their consent on the grounds that if they don't like it they can always kill themselves.
Plus the option is far from always available.

Is it wrong to slip someone 5 dollars? Well, normally yes. I mean imagine you wake up and find five dollars on your bedside table. I sneaked in at night and left it there for you. Was that ok? No.

What if I've got a suitcase with 2 million dollars in it . It is heavy and I am on the top of a very tall building. Nevertheless I want to share my wealth and I am in a hurry, so I decide just to throw it off the building and onto the busy street below. I know that it'll injure - possibly very seriously - whomever it strikes. But what the hell - they'll be 2million dollars up on the deal, so they can't complain, right? No, they can complain and throwing the suitcase off was wrong.

How do you get from antinatalism to pro-mortalism (the view that we ought to kill ourselves) 'without' attributing to the antinatalist a really stupid moral theory?

This seems to be how some of you are reasoning. It goes like this:

"Dur, here's a really stupid moral theory - utilitarianism - and applying it consistently implies both that we ought not procreate (antinatalism) and that we ought to kill ourselves (pro-mortalism). Therefore any case for antinatalism will also imply pro-moratalism."

It's just ridiculous. Most antinatalists are not straight utilitarians. Why? Because utilitarianism is a stupid theory. That you can reach the antinatalist conclusion via utilitarianism does not mean that antinatalists are utilitarians. I mean, here's another stupid theory about morality: any act beginning with 'p' is wrong and any act beginning with 's' is obligatory. That also gets one to the antinatalist conclusion because 'procreating' begins with 'p', and to pro-mortalism as well, because 'suicide' begins with 's'.

I cannot see any reason to create a new child and I have not had any children myself. — Andrew4Handel

Why does there have to be a "reason"? Shaping the future generation of human beings seems pretty important to me, although I myself still have no kids.

I really can't abide by the cheap and easy nihilism that pervades your post. Perhaps it's best if you don't have kids. On the other hand, all that will be left are people who don't think at all and end up with 8 kids. If that's where things trend, we'll end up with an Idiocracy type situation.

So the question embedded in your inquiry about children is this: do we care about the future or not?

I, for one, do.

No. By that logic one could do anything to someone without their consent on the grounds that if they don't like it they can always kill themselves.
Plus the option is far from always available.

Assuming suicide is available, the alternative to non-existence is available anytime the victim of consent feels the consent violation outweighs the benefits of existence. There's no analogue to other consent violations, like say rape. Suicide is uncreating yourself, which was the consent violation: creation without consent. The rape victim cannot un-rape herself. She can kill herself, but that doesn't remove the consent violation. It just terminates her existence. Suicide negates the consent violation (assuming the person's existence was, on balance, neither good nor bad).

Now, you can say that there is a harm in even putting someone into a situation where they have to go through the ordeal of suicide. And I would agree that that's a serious harm. However, how do you handle the fact the vast majority of people don't kill themselves and don't want to kill themselves? If you ask most people, they might not be happy with their existence, but they certainly don't want to end it. So how can you do harm to someone who continues to exist yet you brought them into existence without consent? Are you claiming that such people are addicted to existence?

There's another category of people that truly enjoy their life. I got lucky in that my son is one of these people. He's very computer science minded and I explained the argument to him, but he said even if I should have gotten his consent, he's glad I had him. Did I harm him in bringing him into existence without his consent? I think a utilitarian or consequentialist would say no.

Is it wrong to slip someone 5 dollars? Well, normally yes. I mean imagine you wake up and find five dollars on your bedside table. I sneaked in at night and left it there for you. Was that ok? No.

Discovering money on the table would lead to psychology distress, which is a harm. Suppose I add $5 to your bank account, and then change your memory of your account by $5. Was there a harm?

What if I've got a suitcase with 2 million dollars in it . It is heavy and I am on the top of a very tall building. Nevertheless I want to share my wealth and I am in a hurry, so I decide just to throw it off the building and onto the busy street below. I know that it'll injure - possibly very seriously - whomever it strikes. But what the hell - they'll be 2million dollars up on the deal, so they can't complain, right? No, they can complain and throwing the suitcase off was wrong.

There's a harm in that situation. I'm talking about situations where charity is given to someone without their consent and without any harm resulting. Are charitable violations of consent that don't result in harm immoral?

do we care about the future or not? — Xtrix

Where are you going to be in the future? One hundred years from now?

No one exists in the future.

No one exists in the future. — Andrew4Handel

I think death is one of the main reasons not to have children. I believe it to be the one unavoidable harm and death appears to make life pointless which ends all your aspirations and undoes whatever you have done.

People use terms like "saving lives" to describe things like cancer treatment but I refer to them as prolonging life because you can't save anyones life from inevitable death.

I am somewhat frightened of dying and like Ernest Becker I think a subconscious fear of death is a key motivator rather than enjoyment of life.

If that's what you wish, let it be so. However! If you're willing to open up this back and forth toward a non-biased third party (myself at first, and of course any who wish to join, let us do so.)

What is your point, refuted or not, and what is his? Philosophy and yes even the most strict of disciplines, science itself, is about making mistakes and then learning from them. With this in mind, will you not continue?

No one exists in the future. — Andrew4Handel

Oh but apparently your truths and ideals do. This is encouraging, at least to a discernible degree.

What is your point, refuted or not, and what is his? — Outlander

I don't have a point or an argument, I have a judgement and a motive. Other people make other judgements and have other motives.

My judgement is that life is good; that a poor life is better than no life, and a long life is better than a short one - at least as a general rule. And the natural shape of human life includes procreation as a necessary part of its continuation. Antinatalism makes the opposite, negative global judgement of life as a whole, that existence is characterised as a whole by suffering and is as a whole evil.

My life is winding down towards its dissolution in death, but I am still motivated to spread the joy of philosophy, of love, of communication, to the extent I can, to you, to my children, natural and adopted, and to anyone else around. Dry arguments of moral principle seem to me to already presume this global judgement that life is either a gross imposition, or a gift of great value.

In the exchange above, I did make a point that this thread and others similar make too much use of challenging questions, and that such questions are rhetorical devices not arguments. I will not waste more time on that, or on the rhetorical questions.

In the exchange above, I did make a point that this thread and others similar make too much use of challenging questions, and that such questions are rhetorical devices not arguments. I will not waste more time on that, or on the rhetorical questions. — unenlightened

You're essentially saying you don't like the philosophy's arguments so you won't engage in it. I know you think antinatalism as a rhetorical question rather than an argument, but you never spelled out how specifically antinatalism is not an argument. You have only asserted that human life includes procreation. Human life also includes a lot of nasty things, so? Where is your argument against antinatalism other than it is currently something people do?

At the same time you did mention part of the basis of the argument for antinatalism which is that suffering is something not to bring lightly into the world for another person. Why that is not an argument I don't know. It seems like now you are using rhetorical devices to try to wave off the argument you don't like.

Don't force a nearly inescapable game on someone. Don't cause conditions for unnecessary harm on someone. That right there can be discussed in much more detail as a premise. I give a foundation of violating dignity when creating great amounts of unnecessary harm on someone else's behalf. Others have other deontological or consequentialist approaches. Some people also employ the Benatarian asymmetry of it being "good" that no one was harmed, sub species aeternatatis. Either way, you can't just say there's no argument when clearly many people are putting one out there. It just seems a rhetorical device that you are using to try to not have to deal with it.

I know you think antinatalism as a rhetorical question rather than an argument — schopenhauer1

No, you just think you know that. In fact I was rather specific in my criticism, not antinatalism is a rhetorical question, but questioning is a rhetorical device, overused in this thread. If you would read what I say, you would understand more and be less insulted. I respect antinatalism as a legitimate position; I take another view. what I do not respect so much is the proselytising.

If you would read what I say, you would understand more and be less insulted. — unenlightened

Fair enough, it looked like you were talking about AN in general.

I respect antinatalism as a legitimate position; — unenlightened

:up:

I take another view. what I do not respect so much is the proselytising. — unenlightened

Well I think this whole "antinatalism is proselytizing" thing is unfair and just based on strong biases against it. This too would be a rhetorical tactic. Perhaps we should stop talking about Forms because Platonists are proselytizing. The next argument about Platonic Forms should be stopped. Perhaps all talk of Aristotle's virtues should stop. Perhaps all applied ethics dealing with murder and stealing should stop. All political philosophy dealing with communist ideas, capitalist ideas, and specific philosophers who advocated this to stop. You see, it becomes a slippery slope to calling any repeated discussion of a stance you don't like as "proselytizing". I think this is a cop out. You have options.. Don't read the threads if you don't like it. I mean, if it is popular enough, it can have its own section. But this proselytizing claim seems to be more bias against the a philosophy you don't like. Let me give you a counter example..

If David Pearce's transhumanism ideas became popular, and I saw a whole bunch of threads about transhumanism.. I would simply say, "Oh that has become popular philosophy and is something people want to discuss in various forms". Even if I disagreed with it, what the hell does it matter to me if there are 50 threads on this, and only a few on Bertrand Russell's view on mathematics or some other more classically well-known philosophy? Anyone who brings up Wittgenstein one more time and his Logical Investigations.. shut it down. Next time I even hear the term "eliminativist materialism", that's gotta go.. I can't stand that stance, so then next person who has a thread about that, I am going to cry proselytizing.

So your next move is to say that it's the posters not the topics.. So then any specialist..anyone who has an interest or expertise in a certain subject or field.. they gotta go too because I don't like their interest.

Actual proselytizers try to look for people easy to convince. Almost everyone on this forum seems to be cantankerous disagreeable people that argue everything. Seems a pretty inhospitable place for proselytizing. Rather, it is a place for dialectic on particular topics to take shape, form, and nascent ideas to come out in thesis-antithesis-synthesis Hegelian fashion that happens if (good) philosophical discourse takes place.

Well I think this whole "antinatalism is proselytizing" thing is unfair and just based on strong biases against it. — schopenhauer1

FOR FUCK'S SAKE. I DID NOT SAY "antinatalism is proselytizing". PLEASE DON'T MAKE UP SHIT AND QUOTE IT AS IF I SAID IT.

I'm going to stop responding to you for a bit, because you are wilfully misunderstanding me.

proselytize
/ˈprɒsɪlɪtʌɪz/
Learn to pronounce
verb
gerund or present participle: proselytising
convert or attempt to convert (someone) from one religion, belief, or opinion to another.

We can discuss in any number of threads; we can argue it back and forth. But now you are again misrepresenting my position, and that is an unfair and unreasonable practice. It is another rhetorical trick, and it stinks. And it is not antinatalism that stinks, it is your debating style, and your use of illegitimate means to try and convince others of the strength of your position. And that is what I am calling 'proselytising'.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE. I DID NOT SAY "antinatalism is proselytizing". PLEASE DON'T MAKE UP SHIT AND QUOTE IT AS IF I SAID IT. — unenlightened

Then what was the intention of this quote?

I take another view. what I do not respect so much is the proselytising. — unenlightened

Was that again only to a specific poster or antinatalism? That one seemed aimed at AN because it was right after your reference to AN as a legitimate philosophy (general not specific).

convert or attempt to convert (someone) from one religion, belief, or opinion to another.

So, did you read my last post where I address this?

We can discuss in any number of threads; we can argue it back and forth. But now you are again misrepresenting my position, and that is an unfair and unreasonable practice. It is another rhetorical trick, and it stinks. — unenlightened

I'm not trying to. Unless I am misreading you, and you can try to show where this is, you are saying that repeated discussions of a topic (like AN) is proselytizing, and I rebutted this in a long post.

And it is not antinatalism that stinks, it is your debating style, and your use of illegitimate means to try and convince others of the strength of your position. And that is what I am calling 'proselytising'. — unenlightened

This has move to another argument that was just brought up now that is specific to me and not antinatalism, but that was not what you seemed to be referring to before. What about my style is "illegitimate"? It seems, you just don't agree with the position.