Here's another version of my argument which takes into account the fact the existence of abject misery - poverty, chronic illnesses, death, and the rest of the stuff about life that make it an unbearabale ordeal/agony.
As I said, antinatalists, given that they've developed a philosophy (antinatalism), have to counted among the fortunate - even if antinatalists experience suffering they still have an overall comfortable existence as evidenced by how they were able to "think in peace" and work on their belief.
Antinatalists, when they speak of how, to borrow a line from Buddhism, "life is suffering" are not talking about themselves for, as I said, they aren't suffering. What they're actually doing is drawing our attention to the section of the human population who live in appalling conditions, those whose lives are a constant struggle, those who don't know what fun means, and so on. Let's call such people les misérables
Here's the million dollar question aimed at antintalists: can't the les misérables work their way up the social ladder and themselves become antinatalists? Surely they can, les misérables are humans, endowed with the same capabilities, as antinatalists. If so, the antinatlist position is untenable; after all les misérables can achieve the same level of happiness that allows antinatalists to cogitate about them. — TheMadFool
I don´t believe at all, that all antinatalists don´t have suffered.
And let´s suppose, that even if you are right on this, "life is suffering" is not the only argument antinatalists have. — Antinatalist
I don´t believe at all, that all antinatalists don´t have suffered.
And let´s suppose, that even if you are right on this, "life is suffering" is not the only argument antinatalists have.
— Antinatalist
Quite shocking news I must say. It was a zen moment for me. We've been so preoccupied with suffering - that's how powerful it is - that we couldn't see past it. I wonder what other reasons are there for pushing the antinatalist agenda? Can we, for instance, convince a denizen of paradise (supposedly bliss taken to perfection) to not want to live or, at the very least, refuse to have children? — TheMadFool
There at least couple of arguments, which relate on suffering: The first one argues that "life is suffering" is not true in general, but life contains too much of it.
And the other one. This is more complex.
It´s about rights and obligations. I will say we don´t have obligation for anyone to have a child, and same time we have no right to have a child.
In murder the murderer extremely violates the rights of victim of murder very bad, her/his autonomy and sovereignty. Even so, when the murder is painless and does not contain any negative emotions of the victim.
I think these thinks - autonomy and sovereignty - are violated also when persons are going to have a child. I have to also admit, that in this case the violation is more questionable.
And I´m not saying that murdering people and having a child are ethically at same level. Not at all. But both of those acts have some similar features — Antinatalist
Hey Antinatalist,
I've read Schopenhauer's "Studies in Pessimism" and "the Conspiracy Against the Human Race" by Thomas Ligotti. Beautiful and intelligent works of literature that reveal the complex puppetry of our existence and the constant carrot on a stick which seems to deceive us... however, i think this kind of evaluation of reproduction as a moral act is a bit absurd.
For one, the idea that a child is begotten or created (such that it emerges out of nothing into being) is an old myth. Children are, relative to one reproductive partner, an expression of the other partner. If a man has a child with a woman, we may say he "sculpted" the child from her (as out of a preexisting template)... the woman who bears the child, from her perspective, has also "sculpted" the child from the father in the same way. Neither one has "created" the child. And even if we tried to say the man and the woman together created the child, we find that, even from this perspective, they "sculpted" the child from matter itself which they must have consumed and then used in the act of fertilization and embryonic development. ..."creation" or "conception" is not something that can be physically defined in nature... there are only stages of process, of which we cannot ascribe beginning or end except by arbitrary, subjective description. As odd as it may seem, the desire that manifests in a child (or in any thing) is inseparable from the same active forces responsible for it's manifestation... desire (the mechanism) may affect some organism to do something, to feel pain in some instance or to desire some stimuli that another organism might have an opposite reaction to, but the "desire" in itself is inseparable and identical as a force between them... it is just an objective fact of physical reality... — Marigold23
… the child occurs as a byproduct of sex and the parents have been "programmed" to care for it and raise it so that sex can keep happening… — Marigold23
The only way one could imagine "too much" pain (suffering) is as it would prevent pleasure entirely... but, as pain and pleasure can only exist in conjunction with each other, pain (stress) can never so far outweigh pleasure (relief) as to render it impossible for the thing that experiences them. — Marigold23
The only way one could imagine "too much" pain (suffering) is as it would prevent pleasure entirely... but, as pain and pleasure can only exist in conjunction with each other, pain (stress) can never so far outweigh pleasure (relief) as to render it impossible for the thing that experiences them.
— Marigold23
I totally disagree. — Antinatalist
The only way one could imagine "too much" pain (suffering) is as it would prevent pleasure entirely... but, as pain and pleasure can only exist in conjunction with each other, pain (stress) can never so far outweigh pleasure (relief) as to render it impossible for the thing that experiences them.
— Marigold23
I totally disagree.
— Antinatalist
I'd like to rephrase what I said here
Anyone may say some amount of pain is "Too much pain" if by that they mean it has passed a boundary of pain which they would be comfortable with... In fact, no pain is generally comfortable so a person may say all pain is, by subjective definition, "too much pain", if they're just referring to their feelings regarding it.
Therefore, I assume by "too much pain" we must be referring to a point at which pain or discontent for an organism passes an objective limit where it fundamentally destroys the functional capacity of the organism to experience it... Death, in other words... if an organism is not destroyed by pain or discontent, then it is not "too much pain".(except by a subjective evaluation).
Pain after all is meant to be functional, and one may see how it can fail in this function and be described as "too much" or even "too little"...same with pleasure, if we are referring to some function which they carry out. That function seems most likely to be life preservation and reproduction of the organism, like most biological functions.
And of course, If pain results in death directly, then it may prevent pleasure from being experienced as well as pain... but, as an organism survives, it must be able to experience both pain and relief from pain... they go together in living things... — Marigold23
I actually agreed with antinatalism for some time, so I feel a bit like I'm talking with my past self. I find antinatalism to be an intelligent conclusion in a lot of respects... I like its devotion to the adamant regret of all pain and discontent in itself.
People want pain to be relieved and pleasure to increase... but I believe they cannot want "not to be" or for pain and pleasure to be eliminated. To say "I would prefer never to have been" is the same as saying "I would prefer not to be." To believe that it would be better "never to have been" is a prerequisite to antinatalism. There is a fallacy in that statement: For one, as I said, a person can only truly desire what s/he can conceive (what has been experienced)...while a person may imagine death (as an idea of non being and non feeling like unconscious sleep), and act upon that imagining, say, to commit suicide, they cannot truly conceive of non existence, and so we must conclude they acted not with any negative association to their actual existence, but to some object or stimulation in their existence...to this extent, I must conclude that all suicide is, to some extent, unintended or accidental with regard to the relationship between the intention of the suicidal in reducing pain/discontent and the actual outcome of suicide which is pain and pleasure both being eliminated (rather than reduced) in the death of that person's ability to associate (or to think and feel)... A person cannot truly desire a state which is beyond conception. This is not to say that a suicidal person cannot understand the truth of this... in the same way that an alcoholic doesn't act logically due to the stress upon the mind in a chemical imbalance from addiction, there are all sorts of mental stimulation which hinder logical action... extreme pain and discontent are among them. There is no requirement that people must act logically, but there is a requirement that we cannot act based on inconceivable concepts... and an illogical act (like suicide) could however be a reasonable or understandable act if the discontent is more than a person can bear... but they cannot possibly associate negatively to their existence itself...we do not experience existence itself...we experience noticeable or "experience-able" things... a thing (or state) couldn't possibly experience itself because experience requires detachment from stimuli prior to any noticeable contact with it. We cannot, as we exist, be detached from existence in itself in order to experience it, and so positive or negative association with it is absurd, just as it is absurd to associate positively or negatively with non existence... — Marigold23
For another thing, a desire is expressive of a current state and past states leading up to it... to regret being itself would necessitate regret of that regret... (an association to your association). In other words, if you could truly conceive of your existence or non existence in the first place, (which you can't) and you were to associate negatively to your existence, you would also be associating negatively with that negative association. This is an absurdity, because we don't regret the fact of our regret...
try it... do you regret your regret?... if that were so, then wouldn’t you stop regretting?
And if you don’t regret your regret, then you can’t possibly regret your existence which is a prerequisite to your decision to regret. — Marigold23
As far as the responsibility of parents for their children, I would also generally agree with you that parents are (most of time) intentionally, causally responsible, in tandem to nature itself.
Any moral responsibility though is not universal but relative and subjective, though I would also agree subjectively that there is a moral responsibility of the parents in caring for their children. — Marigold23
This is precisely the premise that I am challenging. No, it is not absolutely unnecessary. Even framed in terms of harms done, both choices (have a child and don't have a child) will do harm. So one can say they are having a child to avoid an even worse harm on others. You would say that that is "harming the child for a higher purpose than them". Then I would say that NOT having a child is similarly "Harming the people the child would have helped for a higher purpose than them"
However, if it's ethical to not create a harm, it's also unethical to not create a good. — DA671
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