Name-calling is the epitome of intellect, after all. One could talk about crude deontology that might say that it's better to let trillions die instead of harming a single person, but let us move on. Utilitarians might also recognise that a society wherein people get what they deserve is likely to have higher well-being in the long run, since it would reward ethical people who help make the world a better place. However, those who wish to dogmatically adhere to the doctrine of unremitting and unrestricted pessimism might not care about the nuances of existence, which is unfortunate.

Since there is no evidence that most people dislike their lives, empty assertions and projections fail to demonstrate that utilitarianism leads to antinatalism. It certainly could someday, but it is not this day.

Driven by an unreasonable disdain for a particular view, a few individuals might mistakenly think that utilitarianism entails that suicide is good. However, this is an absolutely ludicrous assertion. Firstly, we have no good reason to ignore the innumerable positive experiences that people have which seem to matter more than the negatives for most people. Ending everything would hardly be a good way to increase happiness. Reckless procreation is indeed problematic. Nevertheless, it can definitely possess value if done in a reasonable way.

As expected, some people would rather deal with extreme thought experiments rather than the real world. Both forms of utilitarianism, negative and positive, can lead to absurd conclusions after a certain point. Those negative utilitarians who only care about reducing harms might have to say that a world wherein there are many people experiencing some harms along with a decent amount of benefits is worse than one in which the total amount of harms and people are less, even though the individuals have horrible lives. Crude deontologists should be fine with the end of countless innocent lives due to their uncritical attachment to a particular principle. Rational thinking about ethics requires thinking about various factors, including intentions, the gulf between theory and praxis, and consequences. Mindless procreation might not be a demand if non-existence has no negative/positive value and cannot be better/worse (as I tend to think). Additionally, too much of anything can be a problem. Practical limitations have to be kept in mind.

Anyway, this has been an interesting thread. I hope that you and the others present here have a pleasant day!

A non-existent person can't deserve anything. — Bartricks

Ok— so there goes your argument.

A baby doesn’t deserve or not deserve anything either. Deserve in this context is meaningless. That you don’t want to believe that, despite multiple people explaining it to you, is your issue.

Ok— so there goes your argument. — Xtrix

No, the act of procreation creates a person - a person who deserves more than they can possibly be given and who deserves no harm (yet will be harmed).

So the act of procreation creates injustices - bads - that an actual person will suffer. And that's a feature that, when an act has it, operates as a moral negiatve.

By contrast, the act of not procreating creates no person and does not deprive a person of anything they deserve.

Up. Your. Game.

Anyway, this has been an interesting thread. — DA671

Not even that interesting; rather boring, actually. Listening to people come up with elaborate, circuitous ways to justify their interpretation of life as a mistake isn’t all that interesting.

“They meet a sick man, or an old man, or a corpse -- and immediately they say: "Life is refuted!" But only they are refuted, and their eyes, which see only one side of existence.” — Nietzsche

Not even that interesting; rather boring, actually. — Xtrix

But how do you know it is boring? Says who? You? I think you just resent the thread.

No, the act of procreation creates a person - a person who deserves more than they can possibly be given and who deserves no harm (yet deserves no harm). — Bartricks

I think they deserve the power of invisibility myself. That life doesn’t provide them that is completely unjust, in my view— hence I won’t have kids.

the act of not procreation creates no person and does not deprive a person of anything they deserve. — Bartricks

It deprives them of joy and happiness.

Up. Your. Game. — Bartricks

How about pretending to be an adult for a few pages?



An attempt at wit? You really nailed me, I guess. Bravo. 10 points for you and your “game.”

It deprives them of joy and happiness. — Xtrix

There's no them. They don't exist. Never have. To be deprived of something one must exist (or, more controversially, at least have existed at some point)

How about pretending to be an adult for a few pages? — Xtrix

I was pretending to be a professor frustrated at his lazy students. And I wasn't pretending..

Beauty can be discovered in unlikely places :)

If one needs to exist in order to be deprived of something (and this is supposedly why the absence of happiness isn't bad), them one also needs to exist in order to gain from the absence of harms. I've tried my best to elucidate this to @Bartricks and others. However, people ultimately have to decide for themselves.

I was pretending to be a professor frustrated at his lazy students. And I wasn't pretending.. — Bartricks

Yes, because you’ve definitely shown yourself to be professorial.

“Self evident.”

Anyway— Nice try at dolling up your feelings that life is a mistake.

:smile: Yeah, best leave the professor to his highly logical and super-complicated arguments.

A very stable genius.

If one needs to exist in order to be deprived of something — DA671

Yes, one needs to exist in order to be deprived of something.

[quote="DA671;718976" them one also needs to exist in order to gain from the absence of harms[/quote]

Yes, where have I denied that?

"Yes. One needs to exist in order to be deprived of something Yes, where have I denied that?"

I never said that there was any denial. I was focusing on the point that if creating happiness requires prior deprivation, then preventing suffering should require the presence of satisfaction. Otherwise, all one has is an inconsistent framework.

Thank you for the discussion, everyone.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/718987

I never said that there was any denial. I was focusing on the point that if creating happiness requires prior deprivation, then preventing suffering should require the presence of satisfaction. Otherwise, all one has is an inconsistent framework — DA671

Why did you say that given nothing I have argued implied otherwise?

To be deprived of something, one needs to exist. That's something I think its true, not false.

To be deprived of something one deserves, one needs to exist. Again, that's something I think is true, not false.

To be benefited by something, one needs to exist. That's something I think is true, not false.

To deserve something one needs to exist. That's something I think is true, not false.

So why are you pointing these things out? Nothing i have argued implies otherwise.

You need to take a bit more time to understand the argument I am making and not decide it's equivalent to some gobbledigook of your own invention.

The point was that if the value of preventing harms persists even if nobody exists (yet) to benefit from it, then it's also good to create positives regardless of whether or not someone is feeling deprived. Since it seemed like you believe that it's good to not act in a way that leads to a manifestation of harms, I thought that it would be reasonable to talk about the other side of the coin. I am sorry if I did not understand your position correctly.

If all one is saying is that non-existence is "neutral" (not good or bad), then in that case, I would say that choosing a state that (overall) can have more good than bad is better than a valueless one.

I believe that I grasped the essence of your arguments a long time ago. Unfortunately, an obstinate desire to single-mindedly focus on one aspect of existence can be deleterious.

What?

I think that to deserve something you need to exist.

So, to deserve a benefit, you need to exist.
And to deserve not to be harmed, you need to exist.

Nothing in my case assumes otherwise. You just can't understand the argument.

Shall I do us?

D-70IQ: Hello Bartricks Bank Manager, I would like a loan of $100m to start my Crayon Warehouse business. Giant hangers devoted entirely to selling Crayons. Red crayons. 'Just Crayons" it will be called. Or perhaps "Just Crayons (Red)".

Bartricks: I've looked at your projections for your Crayon Warehouses and the income you expect them to generate is very small, given that there's scant demand for Crayons and you're going to be building gigantic warehouses devoted entirely to selling them (and in some cases you'll be building 2 such warehouses within half a mile of each other). So, it just seems to be an absurd business and it'll never generate enough revenue to pay back the $100m you want me to lend you.

D-70IQ: but in the first year it'll generate $1,200 dollars. That's money. Money good.

Bartricks: yes, but the interest payments alone on the $100m will be $12m and replaymens will be another $12m. So you need to generate revenue of $2m a month to be solvent, not the $100 dollars you expect to earn. It's just an unbelievably dumb business. I don't really know why you're wasting my time with it.

D-70IQ: but my point is that it'll generate $1,200 a year. That's positive money. Money is positive. It'll generate it. $1,200 from crayon sales.

Bartricks: yes, I know that. I haven't disputed that money is good and that your business will generate $1,200 from crayon sales. That's not at issue. The point is that you need to generate revenue of at least $24m a year for the loan to make sense.

D-70IQ: you mean you don't think $1,200 is worth anything? That $1,200 is not worth having? If it's worth having, then it's worth racking up $100m of debt to generate it, isn't it!

Bartricks: no, it isn't. If you need to generate $100m of debt to generate $1,200 of revenue, then you've got a shite business.

D-70IQ: Clearly you are incapable of understanding me. I am going to take my trolley of belongings next door to Xtrix bank instead. They understanding me there. They lent me $8billion to start my chain of 'thump in the face' shops where you can get thumped in the face for a fee. It lasted a week and generated $20 from one confused customer who now suing me for $20m for broken nose. $20 good.

Of course.

If one is saying that not creating someone is better, they are essentially saying that there would be future innocent beings who would deserve to not be harmed (and they will be harmed to varying degrees), so it's better to not create them (even though they do not exist yet). In this case, one could also say that potential/future people also deserve happiness, so it is better to create them (even though they will only start deserving the good once they exist).

You don't seem to care about understanding others, which is tragic.

If one simply wants to assume that the negatives would always outweigh the positive even if innumerable people (whose perspectives one doesn't share), then it's no wonder that they would gleefully ignore anything contrary to what they believe.

Utilitarian becomes a guise for backing ones preferences. Oh... not THOSE conclusions.. but just THESE conclusions.

Even more striking is how people don't understand the Benatarian asymmetry. Imposition only happens to those who are born (collateral damage only works one way.. by being born).

They also don't understand basic language use of future conditionals (something is a possible state of affairs in the real world versus things that can never be a state of affairs, like meeting a leperchaun).

They also don't understand cause and effect (these conditions lead to that harm).

Funny, how in all other parts of basic conversation, they would most likely understand these concepts.

You don't seem to care about understanding others, which is tragic. — DA671

You're tragic.

If that makes you happy, it's fine.

It's better than letting pessimistic preferences for the void blind one.

An act that doesn't violate existing interests and reduce one's well-being doesn't appear to be a harm/imposition, but that's not a particularly popular view, so I wouldn't mind one not accepting it. However, if impositions are a reality, then so are the benefits. Ineffably powerful appreciation can only come through birth—joy that innocent sentient beings deserve as much as they deserve the absence of harms to the greatest degree possible. I refuse to accept that making the good collateral damage for the sake of achieving a pessimistic agenda is ethical.

I don't care about fictional characters. The fact that something will happen in the future does not show that its absence is good/bad prior to its existence. If it can be the latter, it can also be the former.

The only thing that needs to be understood is that creating a person only causes them to exist. For the action to be a harm/benefit, it would have to negatively/positively affect someone's well-being. Considering that we have no evidence that inexistent souls are desperate to exist or to avoid existence, it does not seem like creation can be good/bad for the person (though it could definitely impact those who do exist). Also, if one wants to talk about cause and effect so much, perhaps they should also think about the fact that one also causes a plethora positives to exist. Lastly, I think that responsibility should be ascribed in a reasonable manner. Surely, it wouldn't make much sense to blame the big bang for a car accident that happened yesterday simply because the Earth wouldn't exist if it were not for the big bang.

It's humourous (but more sad) that perfectly rational people fall prey to the trap of extreme pessimism.

If that makes you happy, it's fine. — DA671

No it isn't.

It is.

An act that doesn't violate existing interests and reduce one's well-being doesn't appear to be a harm/imposition, but that's not a particularly popular view, so I wouldn't mind one not accepting it. However, if impositions are a reality, then so are the benefits. — DA671

Are you a troll? I am not addressing you and we have been through all of this. If you can't predict what I am going to say by now, so be it.

It is. — DA671

Who says? How does anyone know anything? Everything's subjective. Concept. East.

There wasn't much of a reason to reply here. However, I am grateful to you for your insights. I know what you will say, but it shall remain erroneous. Have a nice day!

Also, it was never my intention to appear to be "a person who makes a deliberately offensive or provocative online post." Forums are meant for discussions, and I try my best to avoid saying anything offensive. I apologise if anything I said did come off as being rude or needlessly provocative.

That's why it's not certain that it isn't. It's possible, nonetheless.

I know what you will say, but it shall remain erroneous — DA671

Those two shouldn't go together, so the first clause is not supported by the second :wink: .

Not if they are addressing separate things.

Edit: Here is an explanation in case you have any doubts. What I meant was that I am aware of what your response will be, but you (or someone else) should not be too happy about this (and it's quite natural to hope that someone would accept your claim if they know it) because the response has been (in my opinion) and will be (most probably) wrong due to its fundamental flaws that stem from its inability to recognise the worth of the positives.

But why don't we antinatalists just kill ourselves? That's what I want to know. Although how does anyone know anything?