ake procreation acts themselves - would it notake be better if they could be consented to? — Bartricks
That's question begging — Bartricks
Yet by your logic the fact they're incapable of giving consent means that cannot be any part of the story about why it is wrong. — Bartricks
no, it is default wrong to coerce someone - and default wrong to deceive someone - because the nature of the act is such that it cannot be consented to (as Kanot pointed out ). Perhaps that's the wrong analysis but it'd be absurd to deny it's plausibility. And thats also the nature of procreation acts, so they are default wrong too, or at least it is extremely plausible that they are. — Bartricks
so, just to be clear, you are denying that the fact a person will be seriously affected by an act and cannot consent to it is NOT a moral negative most of the time? Because that is just absurd.
It clearly IS a moral negative most of the time. For instance whenever we have - for other moral reasons - to impose something on someone without their prior consent it is almost invariably regrettable. That is, it would have been better if somehow, per impossible, we could have got it.
Take procreation acts themselves - would it notake be better if they could be consented to? — Bartricks
A small child is incapable of giving consent, but it is still wrong to do things to that child that will affect it for the rest of its life — Bartricks
and wrong in no small part BECASUE it has not consented to them. — Bartricks
All Bartricks is saying is that you CAN'T give consent prior to birth. Birth causes unknown suffering. Ergo, DON'T give birth since consent is impossible. He is saying the default decision in this case should be no birth. — schopenhauer1
I can read. The conclusion doesn't follow, consent is an irrelevant category error, and repeating things in all caps doesn't help. — S
All Bartricks is saying is that you CAN'T give consent prior to birth. Birth causes unknown suffering. Ergo, DON'T give birth since consent is impossible. He is saying the default decision in this case should be no birth. — schopenhauer1
Being a category error is irrelevant. — schopenhauer1
The logic follows if you use the term "impossible".
If it is impossible to get consent and a future action leads to unknown suffering that affects an actual person, then do not procreate that person who will be affected by being born and who will experience unknown suffering. — schopenhauer1
If it is impossible to predict whether a tortoise will fall on your head and the impact will kill you, then do not leave your home, lest fortune claims your life.If it is impossible to get consent and a future action leads to unknown suffering that affects an actual person, then do not procreate that person who will be affected by being born and who will experience unknown suffering. — schopenhauer1
What I am saying is that having children is, initially, only about two people and what they do with their bodies — Echarmion
This seems like a very weird argument to me. The world, or the universe, are not human beings. To talk about the "overall suffering of the world/universe" sounds like nonsense to me. — Echarmion
I think you're mixing two things here, responsibility and intent. — Echarmion
I personally think only action and intent matter, not the outcome. — Echarmion
Okay, but I'm simply pointing out that you can't nonconsensually conceive a child, either. Consent is a category error here. — Terrapin Station
If you think that conclusion follows, then you need to restudy logic. — S
If it is impossible to predict whether a tortoise will fall on your head and the impact will kill you, then do not leave your home, lest fortune claims your life. — Shamshir
I don't see how it doesn't. — schopenhauer1
Yeah I'm not putting the other premises in there. I think you can fill those in..and if you can..you know where the argument was going in the first place and this objection is an exercise in objecting. — schopenhauer1
Sounds like you're coming around to the idea that these discussions you keep creating are pointless, as it has been done to death. You already know that the full argument contains objectionable premises, yet you continue to peddle it. — S
That's not true at all. — schopenhauer1
My point in full was not just about you and I, but billions of people, and it's clearly not irrelevant for any reasonable analysis. And none of your analogies are ever close enough to be appropriate. Stabbing someone isn't close enough to giving birth — S
Any argument which relies on a false analogy is worthless. — S
No it isn't — S
unsupported assertion that the least risky option is always preferred when consent is not available. — S
The counterexample refuting your assertion is that of a person who has had an accident leaving them unconscious and requiring urgent surgery in order to stay alive, with the alternative of doing nothing almost certainly resulting in death, and the decision being in the hands of the person's next of kin. Now, according to your warped way of thinking, death would be the least risky option — S
because that would avoid all of the risks accompanied with continued living — S
That's not an implication of my point, — S
I don't really see how this changes the argument. If you aren't alive, you don't exist.
Let me put this another way: if you want to say it's "less risk" you need to be able to quantify the risk. So at least in theory you have to able to say "X imposes risk of magnitude 50, while Y imposes risk of magnitude 30, so Y is less risky than X". The problem is that you cannot make such a comparison. If a person isn't alive, their risk of harm isn't 0, it's [ ], an empty set. There is nothing to compare with. — Echarmion
Of course. They are extremes intended to show a general principle. — khaled
They don't "rely" on analogies. Analogies just make them easier to understand, extreme as the ones I chose were — khaled
I never thought someone would ask for evidence for this but sure. Here is one: You are never allowed to buy something with other people's money even if you think it's good for them as long as you can't ask them first. — khaled
Death is the least risky option? Really? There is absolutely no chance that unconscious person wouldn't have wished to die? There is very little risk in killing them? Are you listening to yourself? — khaled
Death has a massively negative value for those living. Remaining non existant doesn't have a negative value for those who don't exist (if it even makes sense to say that, the point is no one is harmed by not existing but people are harmed by dying). That's why your analogy doesn't work. — khaled
Doesn't matter, in the case of a subconsious person, they had the ability to express a desire to live. Knowing that most people express a desire to live means you don't have a right to kill them even if you think it would be better for them. — khaled
The implication is: As long as someone can kill themselves to leave an unpleasant situation, that justifies putting them there. I don't think either of us agree with that. — khaled
I think you can say the risk of harm is 0 in that situation. It is trivially true that if a certain person doesn't exist that person is not risked any harm (Because he doesn't exist). — khaled
Again, I don't see a reason to treat an action that WILL risk harming someone any differently based on the fact that they don't exist at the time said action took place. — khaled
You don't seem to think so but you don't take the opposite stance of saying that that fact matters in a significant way. If you're agnostic about this general principle there is nothing I can do to convince you. It is the principle the entire argument rests upon. — khaled
I repeat, that's not an implication of my point. That's your misunderstanding. I don't have any burden to defend your misunderstanding of my point. Do you understand that? This has been a problem throughout this discussion, and it continues to be so. — S
Your reasoning is inconsistent. Nonexistence is the ideal according to you, so death would be a positive. Just as you suggest that it's horrible to conceive a human, by that same logic, one could suggest that it's horrible to keep them in that situation. — S
Then you should be consistent and let everyone decide for themselves. You don't have a right to stop people from conceiving, and then giving birth, and then letting that baby decide for itself when it's old enough. Nothing to do with you. — S
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