"It's evil to act on evil intentions" -- this seems to be the basic argument for AN here.
"To intend to procreate is to set a trap for another person. Setting a trap is evil. To procreate is evil." — baker

I would agree with both of those statements, though let's parse out several things here:

1) Some people do not intend evil when they procreate, but they are setting up a trap nonetheless. They just feel the trap is not necessarily a "trap". Many of my posts argue that it is indeed a trap.

2) For the sake of argument, Isaac has at least acknowledged that one can cause the conditions suffering to another by procreation because an event at Time 1 can become harmful at Time 2. (This by the way is a huge acknowledgement, because of the main foundations for my AN is the not causing unnecessary suffering aspect).

3) However, Isaac is not willing to concede that my dignity argument is valid. He has (too narrowly) defined "dignity" as only to do with one's autonomy of will. He is saying thus, if there is no will that is being violated at the point of conception (because presumably there is no person with a will yet), then there is no autonomy of will violated, and thus no dignity violated.

4) My response has been two fold..
1. Even if there is no "will" at conception to violate, the instant someone is born into a game that is inescapable, that is the beginning of the dignity violation.
2. Even if we were to not agree to that scenario because there was no "will" prior, then the definition need not include "will" for dignity, just a general "injustice is being done". In this case the "injustice of being put into an inescapable game". That injustice would then be violating the person's dignity.

once the situation is "inescapable game, that 'hey you might like some aspects'" I believe there to be a problem, even if it has 'hey you might like some aspects' qualities". At that point, what other choice except suicide or slow death is there of course.. It's not like there's a button that we can just say.. "Next!". — schopenhauer1

At no point was there any choice. There are no yet-to-be-born souls wishing someone would ask them. If people really truly don't want to be in the game any more, they can always opt out. For someone who really does not like the game, it would be nothing but a brief inconvenience. It would be ridiculous to argue that causing people minor inconvenience is immoral. The problem is that most people contemplating suicide do like the game, they just wish they could experience it without the pain they're feeling.

The thing that occurred in the past is going to affect the person in the future..that developing fetus will become a person at some point. It's just like suffering.. I have a board ready to smack you in the head when a you step in a certain spot.. you step there, as intended, and it smacks you in the head... — schopenhauer1

I've just explained how it's not like suffering and you've ignored all the arguments there and repeated the assertion. The bad thing in your example is being smacked by the board - that's the harm - and that is in the future - a consequence.

With making a decision against someone's will, the bad thing is ignoring a person's autonomy. That is not going to happen in the future, as a consequence of your actions. What's going to happen in the future is that someone is going to be created, with a will (that's not bad), someone will find themselves in a game they may or may not like, but that's just the harm principle again and so suffers from the same problem - we risk minor harms for people all the time for the greater good.

At the moment a person was put into this scenario, that is the violation of dignity — schopenhauer1

No person was put into the scenario. There wasn't a person beforehand.

Doing an action that affects someone is messing with someone else's autonomy. — schopenhauer1

Yep, but since there is no person on whom the act of creating them is being performed this doesn't apply.

Any point where someone's existential situation is assumed for them, would be a violation once someone exists to be the recipient of that existential situation. — schopenhauer1

Again, this defies the law of cause and effect. You can't have a point where it's state is determined by some other point in the future. It's physically impossible.

I never originally defined dignity in terms of autonomy of will, so if that is a sticking point for you (because you limited it to this definition) then refer to my broader point here: As I said...

I don't think "dignity" just covers autonomy of will, but a basic unfairness or injustice that might be more fundamental (you don't need a will involved at point A, let's say). — schopenhauer1 — schopenhauer1

I know. But without the dignity-as-will argument your point collapses because we do things to other people all the time for the greater good, taxes, punishments, schooling etc. You need the dignity argument to counter those. IF all you've got is life contains suffering and we shouldn't cause people to suffer without their consent then your argument's rubbish, we do that all the time and nobody thinks anything of it. It's clearly not a moral intuition at all.

The reason why we're here is because the only way you could answer @khaled's sleeping lifeguard example was to invoke a threshold of consequence above which we ought not act against someone's will. You can't revert now to arguments just about the harm principle, they've been lost already - life is mostly a good thing - most people enjoy it - having children creates more good than it causes harm, and if someone really truly doesn't like life, the way out is only a minor and passing inconvenience. The harm principle alone simply doesn't work with our common intuitions about harms. We cause people minor harms all the time for the greater good.

The reason I'm so strongly opposed to antinatalism is this. Underneath it is essentially the same hyper-individualist, neo-liberal bullshit that's rotting our civilisation at the moment. "I shouldn't have to suffer even the tiniest inconvenience to benefit others"...that's what I find so offensive. Peel away all the post hoc rationalisation and that's what you inevitably find underneath, just a plain old sociopathic refusal to suffer any inconvenience for anyone else's benefit.

Now you may well be an exception, and I really am trying to see how that could be the case. But the more evasive you are about the arguments, the more you return to things like the harm principle, the more difficult it becomes to believe that.

Neither are the point at hand though, which is the argument for hard antinatalism. — Isaac

"It's evil to act on evil intentions" -- this seems to be the basic argument for AN here.
"To intend to procreate is to set a trap for another person. Setting a trap is evil. To procreate is evil." — baker

@schopenhauer1 has already dealt with the main substance of this so I won't repeat too much, but basically, yes, it is evil to act on evil intentions and yes, setting a trap is evil.

Life, however, is not like being caught in a trap. Life is generally perfectly nice, being caught in a trap is unpleasant. Life is useful to others whose intentions are morally neutral at worst, being caught in a trap is not useful to anyone whose intentions are morally neutral.

Basically you've just come up with an analogy which is unlike the thing you're trying to analogise.

I actually agree with most of your points here against libertarian ethics, but now exactly is the way out (if someone TRULY hates life) a minor inconvenience? Last I heard suicide is incredibly difficult to do

now (how?) exactly is the way out (if someone TRULY hates life) a minor inconvenience? Last I heard suicide is incredibly difficult to do — Albero

Yeah, it's important to emphasise (and I should have been clearer in my post really), that I'm making a hypothetical argument. I don't really think there actually exist many people in that situation, of truly hating everything about life.

Most people who contemplate taking their own life do so at moments where the pain they're in is occupying too much of their thought for any rational weighing exercise to take place. It's often only temporary (which is why removing opportunities works) and it's almost never a result of having calmly balanced the harms against the benefits.

So that said, in @schopenhauer1's hypothetical example where life is seen as a game one might rationally decide one would simply rather not play, in that specific hypothetical, the way out is only a minor inconvenience. I'm not going to get into the methods.

The reason it seems an odd thing to say is that it's almost never the case, but that's because the person doesn't really want out of the game, they're glad there's a game, they just want the pain to go away. It's possible for that to happen. If, instead of being self-absorbed whingers (I'm referring to modern society here, not antinatalists specifically), we actually got out and helped each other, far fewer people would be in such pain.

If, instead of being self-absorbed whingers (I'm referring to modern society here, not antinatalists specifically), we actually got out and helped each other, far fewer people would be in such pain. — Isaac

Hear hear. Especially during these fucking lock downs, we need to take extra care of each other.

To other posters; my interest in debating antinatalism really goes up and down. Just two days ago when we're debating a point and someone's rebuttal is based on issues discussed years ago (getting into the metaphysical problems of ascribing states to non-existent people) my interest deflates to negative 100. I'm just reading at the moment.

Life, however, is not like being caught in a trap. — Isaac

So what, you're God?

For some (many?) people, life is like being caught in a trap. You can say that for you, it isn't; but for some, it is.

By the way, if we're going to be utilitarian about it. If I take the numbers from the Netherlands (2013 to 2017) then it looks like the following: https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/27/one-in-five-dutch-adults-very-happy

If I attribute weighting by assuming a 1 = -5, 2 = -4 etc. and starting from 6 =+1 up to 10 = +5, I get a weighted happiness score of +264.7. If we have no people, the weighted happiness score is equal to 0 (people) times whatever score you want to apply to it, equals 0. Therefore Dutch people should be fucking like bunnies.

Especially during these fucking lock downs, we need to take extra care of each other. — Benkei

Yes, indeed.

Just two days ago when we're debating a point and someone's rebuttal is based on issues discussed years ago (getting into the metaphysical problems of ascribing states to non-existent people) my interest deflates to negative 100. — Benkei

I get what you mean. It is fascinating though, to me, the way beliefs interact with the articulation of them in the shared space. We create this 'public model' of what we believe which has a purpose, at times detached from the actual belief. Like the recent sentence "Once that situation has started, the dignity was violated." It can't possibly express an actual belief because it doesn't make sense (it's in the form 'some consequence of an event at time t2 causes the event at time t1 to change properties'). It's simply not possible to believe that and believe in normal causality. So what is it doing in the public model being constructed? Those are the interesting bits, the bist that keeps me posting, trying to figure out what the other person was trying to do psychologically, what their process is.

Nice that someone's reading though.

Dutch people should be fucking like bunnies. — Benkei

Ha! Are they not already? (Everyone in the Netherlands is basically Marlon Brando to us repressed English stiffs, we think you're constantly at it. I've only known one Dutch person, the parent of a client - and she was apparently a sex therapist. Did little to undermine my prejudices I'm afraid!)

Ha! Are they not already? (Everyone in the Netherlands is basically Marlon Brando to us repressed English stiffs, we think you're constantly at it. I've only known one Dutch person, the parent of a client - and she was apparently a sex therapist. Did little to undermine my prejudices I'm afraid!) — Isaac

That must have happened when I wasn't looking. :cry:

once the situation is "inescapable game, that 'hey you might like some aspects'" I believe there to be a problem, even if it has 'hey you might like some aspects' qualities". At that point, what other choice except suicide or slow death is there of course.. It's not like there's a button that we can just say.. "Next!".
— schopenhauer1

At no point was there any choice. There are no yet-to-be-born souls wishing someone would ask them. If people really truly don't want to be in the game any more, they can always opt out. For someone who really does not like the game, it would be nothing but a brief inconvenience. It would be ridiculous to argue that causing people minor inconvenience is immoral. The problem is that most people contemplating suicide do like the game, they just wish they could experience it without the pain they're feeling. — Isaac

On suicide.

The possibility of suicide of course exists.  Once born, however, a human being is highly unlikely to have the sufficient skills to commit suicide before the age of five – often, in fact, not before turning ten or even fifteen. When this wish arises and the individual aims to fulfil it, surrounding people strive to prevent the suicide almost without exceptions if they only can. 

Furthermore, a vast number of highly retarded people exist who, due to their condition, will never really be able to commit suicide. One must in any case consider the possibility of having to live a perhaps highly agonizing period of life before suicide, due to a choice – that of creating life – for which the individual him/herself is not responsible. And most importantly, not even suicide guarantees that the individual will achieve the state or non-state where s/he “was” before the decision of having a child was made. (Be it complete non-existence, for example.)

Non-existence is of course "state", where is no he or she.

Non-existence is of course "state", where is no he or she. — Antinatalist

This is metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. Nothing doesn't have properties or states. The ability for a thing to have a property presupposes that it exists.

Non-existence is of course "state", where is no he or she.
— Antinatalist

This is metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. Nothing doesn't have properties or states. The ability for a thing to have a property presupposes that it exists. — Benkei

That´s why I put the word "state" on quotation marks.

At no point was there any choice. There are no yet-to-be-born souls wishing someone would ask them. If people really truly don't want to be in the game any more, they can always opt out. For someone who really does not like the game, it would be nothing but a brief inconvenience. It would be ridiculous to argue that causing people minor inconvenience is immoral. The problem is that most people contemplating suicide do like the game, they just wish they could experience it without the pain they're feeling. — Isaac

But this is of course where I say dignity is violated.. And we don't have to use the narrow definition of "will" either. Just the state of affairs of X will do (being trapped in a harmful game). The indignity is overlooking the person who will exist for some other cause, but in some egregious way. But what is this egregious way? It is a whole life time of playing this game of challenges/overcoming challenges, etc. That egregious overlooking is the indignity. It is the same as the lifeguard.

Now you can ask two things here, and I think it would be legitimate:

1) What would make something egregious?
2) Is there a sort of calculus where something meets that threshold?

I am trying to work out the intuitions.. because there is definitely something wrong with forcing the lifeguard into lifeguarding school EVEN if relatively speaking the lifeguard lives a "normal" life.. other than he is forced to teach lifeguarding and nothing else.

I will say though, that your indignity at my indignity of being thrown into the game would be less indignant if you were to see the game as more harmful than it is. My thoughts are that anything less than a paradise for that person is now using that person for some ends that were not for that person. Obviously after birth, mitigation occurs between lesser and greater harms.. but here is a case where no harm could ensue and hence, no one's dignity was violated for them as well. I've also written many posts elucidating JUST the "mundane" harms, not even focusing on the possibilities for the more egregious ones. That's why I asked if your main beef is whether the lifeguard identified with the forced lifeguarding lessons 75% of the time. I think that seems to be your real sticking point. But lets move on to your main critique of "will" that you have defined awhile back to try to meet the conclusion of "can't work because undefined" etc.

I've just explained how it's not like suffering and you've ignored all the arguments there and repeated the assertion. The bad thing in your example is being smacked by the board - that's the harm - and that is in the future - a consequence. — Isaac

Consequence of having birth is dignity violated too... At nanosecond 1 that a person exists (and that can be during fetus, birth, or later) a person "finds themselves" in a game. THAT right THERE is when dignity is violated. "Who" put them in such a game? How did they get there? So in a way @baker was right to mention intention. Someone intended and also the consequence was that a person has been put in a state of affairs of a nearly intractable, harmful game. I already mentioned that your real beef is with the "intractable" and "harmful" part.. and I know you will definitely disagree with my harder "not paradise" thought, but it is far from that, so empirically we can hash that out.

The reason why we're here is because the only way you could answer khaled's sleeping lifeguard example was to invoke a threshold of consequence above which we ought not act against someone's will. You can't revert now to arguments just about the harm principle, they've been lost already - life is mostly a good thing - most people enjoy it - having children creates more good than it causes harm, and if someone really truly doesn't like life, the way out is only a minor and passing inconvenience. The harm principle alone simply doesn't work with our common intuitions about harms. We cause people minor harms all the time for the greater good. — Isaac

This is metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. Nothing doesn't have properties or states. The ability for a thing to have a property presupposes that it exists. — Benkei

And if someone finds themselves born into terrible circumstances (more than what you consider "normal" life) and the person knew they were going to birth this future person there..That potential person cannot be considered in any meaningful way? In an odd way Benkei, you are invoking some sort of "soul" theory of being.. Very Platonic and Christian of you. You as well @Isaac.

I do think there are meaningful ways to talk about "potential state of affairs" that are more meaningful than say, some state of affairs that can never happen, even potentially. Those potential state of affairs will affect someone at a future point if X, Y, Z actions are not addressed currently. That is a common understanding of how stuff works. You don't need to invoke "non-existence" to make this a "therefore all talk of potential state of affairs of a future person don't matter". That becomes an ad absurdem. All you need to do is recognize that a person will exist who will be affected by the action.

That´s why I put the word "state" on quotation marks. — Antinatalist

As if that resolves the fact that it's meaningless.

And if someone finds themselves born into terrible circumstances (more than what you consider "normal" life) and the person knew they were going to birth this future person there..That potential person cannot be considered in any meaningful way? In an odd way Benkei, you are invoking some sort of "soul" theory of being.. Very Platonic and Christian of you. You as well Isaac. — schopenhauer1

That's neither here nor there with the specific comment I was replying to. Read the OP, which already dealt with this shit.

Why don't you run me through the 50 steps you went through in your head to go from "you can't attribute states to nothing" to "you're invoking some sort of soul"? That's some serious bullshit right there.

Why don't you run me through the 50 steps you went through in your head to go from "you can't attribute states to nothing" to "you're invoking some sort of soul"? That's some serious bullshit right there. — Benkei

Because you don't think in future conditionals based on there not being a "person" existing at the moment you make a decision.

wrong. Read the OP.

What we are comparing then is a possibility of existence with other examples of possible lives lived and we find that possibility unacceptable. But this is fundamentally different from saying this "non-existent" child is better off never having been born because when we talk that way, it is neither a child nor a person nor capable of having any properties, because it is nothing.

It is then the following position of anti-natalism that I suggest has some measure of logical rigour to it:

that any possible persons, who will suffer more than is outweighed by the good they will experience, outnumber people who will suffer less than is outweighed by the good they will experience. Or in short form "unhappy persons outnumber happy persons". — Benkei

Okay, gotcha. It is that last part I disagree with then because it is assuming an aggregate utilitarian approach... It looked like you were agreeing with Isaac that you cannot meaningfully talk about counterfactual future states of affairs where people will be harmed or dignity violated.

I believe when someone is born, at that time T, that is when someone's dignity was violated (put into a harmful challenge/overcoming challenge game). It also causes the conditions for all suffering to occur. Granted they can be loving parents, they can try to mitigate as much as possible, but all instances of suffering occur from being put in a position where the conditions occur..

So yes I note your objection that every instance of harm is not caused by birth, but we I think are also in agreeance that antinatalism is asking us not to put people into conditions where unnecessary harms come about for people...

For the dignity argument you will say that this isn't an issue because you don't think putting people in this game is a bad thing. For the unnecessary suffering argument you will say that people can mitigate most forms of suffering. I just disagree that it is okay to put people into a challenge/overcoming challenge game and I think it is not just to unnecessarily start for someone else the conditions whereby any form of suffering can or will ensue. This is where we are going to disagree. No one "needs" to be born and there is no one prior to birth to mitigate harms for anyways.

but all instances of suffering occur from being put in a position where the conditions occur.. — schopenhauer1

This is just a rephrasing of "caused by" which I've thoroughly debunked ages ago. Not going again there. Existence doesn't cause suffering. And I don't need metaphors of a game to make my point. But if you want, you're not avoiding losses by not playing the game. Losing presupposes playing, so if you want to avoid a loss, you need to start playing first. Anything else is just nonsense.

Also note that the data for the Netherlands is a strong utilitarian argument to have as many babies as possible.

That´s why I put the word "state" on quotation marks.
— Antinatalist

As if that resolves the fact that it's meaningless. — Benkei

Couple of pages before in this same thread I answered to Isaac. After all, he didn´t agree with me.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/525339

If you think the way Isaac does, I just have to wonder the logic of both of you.

This is just a rephrasing of "caused by" which I've thoroughly debunked ages ago. — Benkei

:rofl: You're funny (unintentionally?).

Not going again there. — Benkei

Right because you don't read the word "conditions of suffering" and replace in your head with "cause".

Losing presupposes playing, so if you want to avoid a loss, you need to start playing first. Anything else is just nonsense. — Benkei

ABSURD. In order to avoid X, you must enter X so THAT it can be avoided. In order to avoid having someone else eaten by a lion, you should put them in situations where they can be eaten by the lion....Nope.

Also note that the data for the Netherlands is a strong utilitarian argument to have as many babies as possible. — Benkei

I am not a utilitarian, at least in that aggregate sense, so wouldn't matter for my argument. That is where dignity comes in anyways, to prevent a person being overlooked for some greater good idea.

ABSURD. In order to avoid X, you must enter X so THAT it can be avoided. In order to avoid having someone else eaten by a lion, you should put them in situations where they can be eaten by the lion....Nope. — schopenhauer1

Nothing absurd about if you stop replacing meaningful terms with meaningless ones. There's no presupposition between X and second X, so of course, THAT results in an absurdity. But only because it's an obvious straw man.

You're funny (unintentionally?). — schopenhauer1

Oh yes, let's return to where you never proved living causes suffering (not a sufficient cause) and just kept repeating "but you have to live to suffer", which coincidentally reinforces my previous point that suffering presupposes living. Just like any property of a person really. God, this is so fucking tedious it isn't funny anymore. Just some idiots with a belief and forgetting about basic logic.

@Isaac
@Benkei
@khaled
I haven't read the whole debate, but I think the fundamental disagreements here are over what choices would be unreasonable and what choices would be reasonable to decide on behalf of another. For the philosophical pessimist, they have good reasons to believe it will never be reasonable (Like Schop1s many posts on structural suffering etc). Like any argument I think thats perfectly fine, but if other people also have collectively good reasons to believe in optimism and that lives are worth starting and living, why is their decision on behalf of someone else unreasonable? It's true it seems wrong to force someone to be a lifeguard for the rest of their lives because of the greater good, but if we lived in a world where everyone would enjoy or wouldn't mind such an imposition, it wouldn't be an unreasonable decision. This is how I view birth. I actually agree that given climate chaos, the scourge of neoliberal capitalism, and the rise of authoritarian governments that having kids is a decision on behalf of someone else that will be unreasonable in the near future. But this still doesn't get us Hard Antinatalism, only "don't have kids under predatory capitalism and severe climate breakdown" which seems to be popular given how lots of people aren't having kids. If the world didn't have to deal with these things, I think it would be an extremely reasonable decision on behalf of another. The disagreement will then be that putting people into situations of challenge where they didn't need to is wrong , but I just can't intuitively accept this.

aha, the scenarios where we have pegasi on the one hand and unicorns on the other. If neither pertain to reality nothing about the argument is relevant.

aha, the scenarios where we have pegasi on the one hand and unicorns on the other. If neither pertain to reality nothing about the argument is relevant. — Benkei

My example was like that to show how absurd conclusion the idea "If we are in a position where we cannot ascribe propositions such as "people are suffering" or "people are not suffering" then the absence of suffering is not a moral good because it's not enjoyed by anyone." will lead.

I honestly believe hard antinatalist are thoroughly confused about metaphysics (attributing states and properties to nothing), causality (living is demonstrably no cause for suffering, any property of a person presupposes living but that doesn't mean my red hair is caused by living), a self-serving dismissal of human experience (plenty of modern societies where almost nobody is really miserable), self-serving dismissal of history (comfort and happiness have developed for the better) and a narrow view of human behaviour (hunger is suffering, but it leads to culinary experiences and quality time with friends and family).

I think there are very good reasons not to have kids in specific circumstances. I had to think long about it myself because of global warming, pollution, over fishing, corporate capitalism etc. but quite frankly I've managed to work myself to the side of the equation where I can insulate myself and my family from most of these issues if needed.

Your sentence doesn't make sense to me in that I'm confused what you're trying to say. In your last post people are either suffering or they are not. People are doing something. If there are no people, it no longer makes sense to talk about suffering because that is something people do. In other words, "suffering" is a state, which presupposes the existence of living people.

Sorry I felt like your explanations in the intro were a bit confusing, so is your belief that suffering is not sufficiently caused by being alive? If so, it reminds me of some Stoic beliefs, IE we suffer more in our minds than we really do in our bodies.