Compulsion? I was only talking about free will. Freedom of choice. And about the inadmissibility of condemnation for the choice of a free person.So what makes this world "free"? That people can escape by suicide? What makes forcing people into such a situation moral? I didn't quite get that from your response. — schopenhauer1
Not an AN anymore but I keep hearing this. This would imply that having children is never wrong. It would also imply that genetically modifying someone to be blind and deaf is not wrong since you're not forcing anything on anyone, therefore morality doesn't factor in (assuming you don't think a sperm or egg is a person). It would also imply that if a certain couple, upon hearing that their child would have dozens of severe genetic illnesses due to hidden genes that they have, would not be doing anything immoral by having said child.
Do you agree with each of the above 3? If not then why?
I think positions that attempt to say that having children is not a moral issue, and can never be wrong are ridiculous.
I'm saying not having children on the basis of protecting an abstract being from being forced into suffering is not a moral issue. It's an imaginary one. When a sense of morality extends no further than the skull, can be accomplished in the comfort of one's home and without any interaction with real beings, I would argue it isn't morality at all.
There is nothing abstract about genetic modifications, sperms and eggs, couples choosing between the life and extirpation of their child. These decisions have demonstrable effects and involve real behavior. — NOS4A2
When a sense of morality extends no further than the skull, can be accomplished in the comfort of one's home and without any interaction with real beings — NOS4A2
1.) It's near impossible to escape either work, free-riding off other's work, homelessness, or death (suicide or otherwise).
2.) It's near impossible to overcome the contingent harms that impress themselves on each and every person daily.
3.) It is near impossible to overcome the boundedness of being a particular animal living in a place, time, etc. — schopenhauer1
They only think of the range within the boundedness and not the limits themselves. — schopenhauer1
Oh no..... I have to work and I may occasionally get injured as an animal that lives in a certain place and time.... what a nightmare! — khaled
That... is the same thing. No one is seriously saddened because they’re limited by being an animal in space. No one has thought to themselves “I can’t be in 2 places at once, this is so awful”.
People are aware of the limits. — khaled
it is the options and not the limitations that people gravitate to such that they don't feel that life itself has the impositions similarly to the other limiting forced events. — schopenhauer1
what you, I, or he would have wanted. — schopenhauer1
Yes, economic realities make up a significant and pervasive portion of life. It is a condition. — schopenhauer1
This meets the threshold as discussed earlier. — schopenhauer1
This relates back to my main point in that the limitations and conditions of surprise parties, on a subject that has self-reflection and can evaluate their own existential situation, is pervasively controlled by various necessary conditions that one must deal with. — schopenhauer1
"Sacrifice" makes it seem like it's necessary for the happiness of the majority and that I wouldn't stop it if I could.
An "acceptable consequence"? Yes. "Sacrifice"? No. — khaled
Some people are going to get heart attacks from surprise parties. Doesn't make surprise parties wrong. — khaled
Again. Those are the same thing. To state all the options is to imply all the limitations and vice versa. — khaled
What would you have wanted before you were born? Nonsensical question. — khaled
Correct. I'm pointing out it's one people don't mind generally. — khaled
And you keep conflating the two. You start out with "Birth has properties A, B and C which make it immoral". Then someone replies "Surprise parties have A, B and C and you don't think they're immoral generally". So you change to "Birth has too much A and too much B and too much C". Then someone replies "Most people don't think it's too much". Then you go back to "But it has A, B and C, don't you see!". And around and around we go. — khaled
Thus, for you, if the slave thinks his conditions are suitable, it is suitable. — schopenhauer1
However, if the slave had more perspective and given a chance to see the limitations, perhaps the slave would realize there was an injustice/harm done to him — schopenhauer1
existence itself has injustices that we deal with being humans having to survive, find comfort, and entertainment within a contingently harmful world (disease, disaster, dealing with other people, harmful situations, negative experiences, etc.), — schopenhauer1
in any survival task, one needed to survive in a certain socioeconomic setting (the usual mode of human survival), one can evaluate it as negative — schopenhauer1
But you want some objectivity of your argument which due to the nature of extent arguments is not achievable. — khaled
And most people STILL think that life doesn’t meet the threshold. — khaled
Fulfilled desires, like pleasures (even of the intrinsic kind), are states of achievement rather than default states. For instance, one has to work at satiating oneself, while hunger comes naturally. After one has eaten or taken liquid, bowel and bladder discomfort ensues quite naturally and we have to seek relief. One has to seek out pleasurable sensations, in the absence of which blandness comes naturally. The upshot of this is that we must continually work at keeping suffering (including tedium) at bay, and we can do so only imperfectly. Dissatisfaction does and must pervade life. There are moments, perhaps even periods, of satisfaction, but they occur against a background of dissatisfied striving. Pollyannaism may cause most people to blur out this background, but it remains there. — David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence
You’re arguing in bad faith when you automatically assume the person you’re talking to is deluded if they don’t agree with you. — khaled
It can be the case people have the wrong assessment. — schopenhauer1
entertain the possibility that someone can think life doesn’t meet the threshold without being wrong and biased — khaled
Your caught up on the idea that something that seems pervasive must make it thus true or insulated from being in the category of bad judement, possibly due to lack of perspective in this case. — schopenhauer1
Reminds of “feminists” going on about how terrible the patriarchy is, and whenever someone challenges their views it’s “oh you’re just a man you wouldn’t know” or “oh you’re just a patriarchy slave you wouldn’t know (in case of women)” — khaled
Sure, but to know that anyone who disagrees with you has a bad assessment is the definition of arguing in bad faith. — khaled
There can be no argument with you if you automatically think that the interlocutor is wrong (or lacking perspective) for disagreeing with you. — khaled
1.) It's near impossible to escape either work, free-riding off other's work, homelessness, or death (suicide or otherwise). — schopenhauer1
An egregious version of this to show the point is that a Nazi or white supremacist who disagreed with me, is making a bad assessment. — schopenhauer1
However, it is harder to understand how any neuro-typical (if that's a thing?) person constantly misevaluates due to strong genetic, environmental, and social pressures. — schopenhauer1
But I am pointing to what the other side of that coin is, which is that it is really a bounded set of options within the limits of the conditions of life. — schopenhauer1
Further, this is pretty much equivalent to a game that one must do- the game of life itself.. It has a set of systemic rules to "master" to some extent, and a series of challenges, many of which are not known beforehand to overcome. One can roll all of these aspects into the "challenge/overcoming challenge game". — schopenhauer1
You can say "these are acceptable", but then I will point to the fact that people throughout history have made wrong evaluations. A lack of perspective in how life is bad is possibly part of the problem for these bad judgements. Our bias to see the options and not the limitations, is one big part I think. In other words, "You have options!" is thus refuted, because it is "bounded in limits", and the limits have been pointed out X, Y, Z.. As I have been doing in many of my posts. — schopenhauer1
This would be violating the threshold of dignity. — schopenhauer1
and its options within limits, sufficiently so that is indeed similar to the lifeguard situation on second look. — schopenhauer1
To call it a bias implies an "objective" way of viewing it. In the case of life there is no such thing. You can't get "out of life" to view life. — khaled
Let me ask you this: What boundaries of life would you find acceptable to have children in? If you respond to nothing else respond to this.
If you can't answer that, then yours is a type argument. In which case it fails because you don't apply it to general day to day life (surprise parties are ok for example, generally) — khaled
Stop with the type arguments. This also applies to surprise parties. You're wasting typing by repeatedly pointing out that "life is an unconsented imposition". So are many things you find ok. We are now arguing about whether it is bad enough. — khaled
I could just as validly argue that some people have been pessimistic throughout history before (Like thinking moving pictures will be impossible, or that science will only advance this far or or or) and you're one of those people. So let's not play the "People have been wrong before therefore you're wrong now" game. — khaled
For you. Maybe. But so far you've presented so many limitations of life and most people that have read them have continued to think it's not above the threshold. You've been sharing your perspective, and people have been listening and seeing its truth, and still they think life is under the threshold. And they can do this consistently. — khaled
Do you recognize that most people here see all the same limits and don't think they're sufficient? — khaled
What I am saying is that where it at first seems like you can never be "wrong" about your own evaluations, perhaps, there is an objectively "right" view here as well that is more accurate — schopenhauer1
I think it is analogous to life really, and not that far off. — schopenhauer1
What is unknown is the immense amounts of contingent harms such as emotional anguish, physical ailments, disasters, annoyances, and a vast, very long list of other things that a person can experience and be. — schopenhauer1
Taking the challenges of the limitations (I call this "necessary suffering" as it is systemic to existence as a human mainly) and the contingent harms, we have a sufficiently large enough qualitative and quantitative amount of (for lack of better word) "stuff" that would count for pervasive controlling and overlooking of the negative aspects done to someone else. This would then cause the dignity violation. — schopenhauer1
Now, from here, you will say, "I deem it not sufficient". And so be it. At this point we can at least agree that individuals must make up their own mind as to whether to argument makes a logical, emotional, or other appeal. I am fine with that — schopenhauer1
Okay. Again, I present my case. That's all I can do — schopenhauer1
There is a threshold of some kind, where something that is not wrong, becomes wrong with a sufficient (as you call it) extent. — schopenhauer1
I don't want to keep repeating all the negatives that one is overlooking on someone else's behalf, but I think it is a large enough in quantity and quality that it does cross the threshold. — schopenhauer1
I have given numerous (not directly in this thread, but look at my corpus as a whole for this) accounts of the negatives which we are often not seeing, or perhaps just not clearly reasoning it out — schopenhauer1
Right. And I doubt anyone discovered any new limits or types of suffering that they didn’t know of before. And yet they were not antinatalists. Because they don’t think those things go over the threshold. — khaled
@AlberoOr if they are arguing that life imposes too much then there is no objectivity behind it and the argument is not convincing. It’s like going around trying to convince everyone that people shouldn’t drink coffee because it’s “too bitter”. For you maybe, but that’s no argument. — khaled
Yet this changed. Was slavery (or pick anything similar) right because the majority thought it so? — schopenhauer1
people will see that this too meets the threshold — schopenhauer1
Slavery was wrong then as is now, it’s just people’s capacity or perspective to understand this that changed. — schopenhauer1
I never made an argument from majority. The words "Majority" or "Most" don't appear in my comment at all. — khaled
Right. And I doubt anyone discovered any new limits or types of suffering that they didn’t know of before. And yet they were not antinatalists. Because they don’t think those things go over the threshold. — khaled
If by it you just mean that people will change their mind and come to see things as you do: The chances are basically 0. Because whoever thinks that life was a mistake will die with no descendants, leaving only the people who think life isn't a mistake behind. All it takes is 2 people of opposite genders to disagree, and the whole "project" is for nothing. — khaled
Agreed. But I don't think you can tell people much about how horrible life is that they don't already know. So it doesn't seem to me like a lack of perspective. — khaled
You have been making a tacit and explicit argument from majority. — schopenhauer1
And I doubt anyone discovered any new limits or types of suffering that they didn’t know of before. And yet they were not antinatalists. Because they don’t think those things go over the threshold. — khaled
Well, if people enslave someone in some country, that doesn't mean its right. — schopenhauer1
People really don't see what is not phrased in a way to allow them to open up their perspective. — schopenhauer1
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