Negative utilitraianism =/= antinatalism

I'm looking for the line between the two

Is it? I don't see it as obvious. — Moliere

For a utilitarian suffering is like math so 9 billion X 1-10/10 is definitely greater than just 10

If the Global anti-natalist's proposal is carried through, how would you classify the people who will exist? Would you agree with me that they are no longer people who will exist, but are actually people who will not exist? — Moliere

Ye

I am not allowing it. The only exploitation I can realistically control is not exploiting my own child — Andrew4Handel

So you're saying that people get to pick and choose which exploitation to control? Because it sounds to me when you say "the only exploitation I can REALISTICALLY control" that you're basing it on your own subjective needs. So if you were 20, and in a pack hunting for food in 6000BC it would have been moral to procreate because back then it was actually necessary for survival? Because if you base your Procreation on needs, and if everyone in first world countries therefore chooses not to procreate it won't be 10 years before you recognize the need to do so and just have kids. What you're advocating sounds a lot more like local antinatalism to me which is a version that's more time and need considerate which I don't even mind honestly

no I don't see how that follows

In S2 you claim that everything we do is immoral, that is to say, everything we do causes pain — Πετροκότσυφας

No I don't that's why "essentially" is there. If we lived in some sort of paradise where no harm is possible then everything would be morally neutral. Having a massive feast in a dream for example is morally neutral and also pleasurable. And so is imagining things. Twittling your thumbs is also morally Neutral

Pain: immoral
Neutral: morally neutral
Pleasure: morally neutral

And there ARE things that are morally neutral. Sorry, I have a bad habit of expecting way too much inference from people when I'm making arguments

how is not a pleasant experience moral but morally neutral when the opposite of unpleasant is pleasant? — Πετροκότσυφας

because that's how negative utilitarianism works

What's the difference between essentially immoral and immoral simpliciter? — Πετροκότσυφας

I already said what the difference was. Almost all of your actions ARE immoral according to this framework (with varying degrees) but an action that does not cause any harm whatsoever (such as kicking someone in a dream or breathing) is morally neutral

I'm looking for the line between the two — khaled

If negative utilitarians think that only suffering matters, if they think that all suffering, no matter how slight, matters, and if they think that anything that creates less suffering should be obligatory, then there is no difference.

cool.

Not that compelling, I must admit. — Πετροκότσυφας

I am aware. It wasn't my idea

One of the problems I see is a parent has a child either for a particular set of personal reasons, or due to circumstances of sex. None of these reasons have the scope of that new person's life. The interest of the child as a whole person and what they experience in life can never be considered in full. But once the child is born all the negative collateral damage will occur nonetheless. The scope for the use of the child for the parent or simply the no thought that goes into procreation act itself, does not accord with what will follow for the child. It is incongruent. To not even think reproduction- whether or not it’s a good thing, is in the realm of moral reasoning, is perplexing to me considering that it lies at the cusp of such an important existential, ethical, and metaphysical starting point.

The big problem is this: Parents' evaluation of life are the only thing that matters in the consideration of having a child. The parents' point of view is the reason the new person is born. The parents' point of view is not the child's point of view, yet the child's life is justified only from the parent's proxy stand-in point of view of life. That is incongruent, yet is never considered unjustified. Our species is self-aware enough to reflect on these things. There is nothing that says ethics and and reproduction are compatible (naturalistic fallacy). Nor is reproduction ethical because its natural (naturalistic fallacy). We make analogies to other species, we are but one species out of many right? But other species cannot self-reflect, and have little to no moral calculations. Thus the comparison with other species is simply denying the freedom of choice humans have.

There's a refutation.

Philosophical (as opposed to societal) Antinatalism depends on the metaphysics of Materialism (or something similar to Materialism in some regards).

Philosophical Antinatalism is metaphysics-dependent.

I'm not a Materialist.

By Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism, the activities of your parents are only the physical mechanism, but not the reason, why you're in a life.

And of course if you're in a life, then the consistency-requirement requires that your experience of your physical surroundings be consistent with your being in a life. That includes a requirement that there be evidence of a physical mechanism for the physical origin of the animal that that you experience being.

Your life-experience-story is about the (your) experience of being that animal, and, as I said, that experience musts be consistent (...because there are no inconsistent facts.). Therefore your experience of your surroundings must include there being evidence (when evidence is checked-for) regarding a physical mechanism for the physical origin of the animal that you experience being.

Materialists assume that a physical world comes first, and then a galaxy, a sun, and a planet form, and a species evolves, and then an animal is conceived by parents and is born as a result. Yes, that's the physical story, and of course it's true in its own context. In your necessarily-consistent life-experience-story, it's hardly surprising that you find physical evidence for the above physical mechanism for your experience of being the animal that you are in this life.

But arguably, in a hypothetical logical-system that I call your "life-experience-story", you and your physical surroundings are just the twocomplementary parts of that life-experience-story.

Without going into detail here (I've argued it in a lot of other threads), I'll mention that Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism is fully parsimonious--something that can't be said for Materialism.

So, don't blame your parents for your being in a life. There were going to be parents for you somewhere, because you were going to be in a life..

Your parents aren't the reason for you. You're the reason for them.

8 Frimaire (Frost-Month) CCXXVII (French-Republican Calendar of 1792)

2018-W48-4 (ISO WeekDate Calendar)
(4th day (Thursday) of 48th week of year)

Michael Ossipoff

Ill have to read into that because I have no idea what you're talking about and that tiny excerpt was not convincing for me at all

If 2 people were starving on an island would one cannibalizing the other be morally wrong? I'm on the camp that says no. That person's evaluation of life is the only thing that mattered when he decided to harm the other person even though the other person's evaluation is radically different and I consider that justified. If I have to harm someone to survive whether that be by giving birth or cannibalizing someone I'd do it

If I have to harm someone to survive whether that be by giving birth or cannibalizing someone I'd do it — khaled

How are those two things equivalent? You don’t need to give birth to survive.

How are those two things equivalent? You don’t need to give birth to survive. — schopenhauer1

Maybe he means psychological survival?

Would negative utilitarianism even make sense as a stance to hold under your ontology?

I'm not sure how that would work.

For a utilitarian suffering is like math so 9 billion X 1-10/10 is definitely greater than just 10 — khaled

Even so, it would depend upon the function which measures suffering. So we might say that the mode of the set of all sufferers is the final output rather than, say, the sum.

Ye — khaled

Then do you also agree with me in saying that suffering is not independent of people who suffer?

There is no independent suffering-function to which our moral acts must hue?

The final output would be classical utilitarianism. Negative utlitarianism is the sum of suffering

And yes I agree with you suffering is not independent of the people who suffer

not individually but being in a society (product of birth) greatly increases your survival chances as opposed to being out in the wild. It’s like how everyone needs food to survive but not everyone necessarily needs to produce food. We need a next generation to survive but not everyone needs to have kids

no but that would also be a good point

Ye — khaled

That quote should be memorialized.

not individually but being in a society (product of birth) greatly increases your survival chances as opposed to being out in the wild. It’s like how everyone needs food to survive but not everyone necessarily needs to produce food. We need a next generation to survive but not everyone needs to have kids — khaled

In this case it is just a means of how you weigh the utility. More births means more deaths and suffering anyways, so it is short-sighted.

I can think of two:
1. You have to pay this price of suffering for existence, which should cancel out this negative morality, utility wise.
2. Birth is neutral because it contains both suffering and the ability of rising above it and gain happiness (which is your benefit). Looking only at the negative gives you a skewed perception of morality.

Since money has time value, you could make a comparison: you give a loan of 100 bucks to someone, with the understanding that they will give you 110 bucks a week from now. Is it true to say you are short of 100 bucks? Sure, if you look at your purse only. However, you also have a promise form the other fellow, that he will pay it back with interest. It's basically a contract with some risk.

You also don't have the right to choose before conception so how would you know if you want to make this deal of a "lifetime"? You could say your parents know, but you can counter argue with good will, or the inherent value of life I mentioned. Or if you believe we have no free will at all, then you could say it was an unavoidable that you would be born, and you can't assign morality to nature (your parents may even have tried everything to not have you, but you were still born somehow - this is especially true with pro life laws).

"2. Birth is neutral because it contains both suffering and the ability of rising above it and gain happiness (which is your benefit). Looking only at the negative gives you a skewed perception of morality."

If there are both good and bad aspects of existence, that does not necessarily mean that existence is neutral overall. In fact, the only way that existence is completely neutral is if there is exactly as much good in life as there is bad in life. An antinatalist would argue that since it is reasonable to suppose that life overall contains more bad than good, then performing an act of commission without the permission of the person most affected by the act would be wrong because the person created could reasonably resent the fact that he was created. Many philosophers would object to this logic by stating that procreators have no way of asking their future offspring for permission. An Antinatalist could respond to this objection by arguing that, in similar cases, it would also be wrong to perform an act of commission that could reasonably be viewed as a net harm without permission even when permission could not be acquired. For example, imagine that a surgeon has to choose whether or not to operate on an unconscious patient. If he operates on the patient, the patient will experience a tremendous amount of suffering, but if he refuses to operate the patient will die. Some antinatalists would argue that it's better to let the patient die because you have no obligation to save that patients life but you do have an obligation not to cause the patient extreme suffering. Although, if the surgery in question only involves minor suffering, then the fact that the patient cannot grant consent may be overridden by a reasonable assumption that the patient wants his life saved and is willing to endure the minor suffering. An antinatalist would typically think it is reasonable to wish to not be born though and therefore we shouldn't procreate since we don't have a duty to create anyone but we have a duty not to inflict harm onto them.

Would negative utilitarianism even make sense as a stance to hold under your ontology? — Terrapin Station

No.

Michael Ossipoff

2018-W48-7

11 Frimaire (Frost-Month) CCXXVII

Okay, but that's what khaled keeps asking for. A refutation under the auspices of negative utilitarianism.

Fair enough. Telling why Negative-Utilitarianism doesn't apply isn't what the OP asked for, and so I didn't answer his question.

Michael Ossipoff

I have no idea what you're talking about and that tiny excerpt was not convincing for me at all — khaled

I've found a copy of a more complete posting about Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism.

So, if you still don't agree with me, at least it won't be because I didn't post my proposal.

Description of my metaphysical proposal:
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December 2, 2018 edit:
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I hope this clarifies what I mean when I mention Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism. I don’t guarantee that you’ll agree with what I say—evidently nearly no-one here does.
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The disagreement seems to always take the form of someone insisting that this physical world, instead of just being real and existent in its own context, has to have some sort of absolute objective fundamental independent existence and reality—but without being able to say what that would mean, much less how he knows it to be true.
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9/29/18 posting:
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First two premises that we all agree on:
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1. We find ourselves in the experience of a life in which we’re physical animals in a physical universe.
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2. Uncontroversially, there are abstract implications, in the sense that we can speak of and refer to them.
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I claim no other “reality” or “existence” for them.
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By “implication”, I mean the implying of one proposition by another. By “abstract implication”, I mean the implication of one hypothetical proposition by another hypothetical proposition.
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So there are also infinitely-many complex systems of inter-referring abstract implications about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things.
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Among that infinity of complex hypothetical logical systems, there’s one that, with suitable naming of its things and propositions, fits the description of your experience in this life.
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I call that your “hypothetical life-experience-story”. As a hypothetical logical system, it timelessly is/was there, in the limited sense that I said that there are abstract implications.
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There’s no reason to believe that your life and experience are other than that hypothetical logical system that I call your hypothetical life-experience-story.
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Just as I claim no “existence” or “reality” for abstract implications, so I claim no “existence” or “reality” for the complex systems of them, or anything else in the realm of logically-interdependent things.
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Each of the infinitely-many complex systems of inter-referring abstract implications about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things is quite entirely separate, independent and isolated from anything else in the describable realm, including the other such logical systems.
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Each neither has nor needs any reality or existence in any context other than its own local inter-referring context.
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Any “fact” in this physical world implies and corresponds to an implication:
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“There’s a traffic-roundabout at the intersection of 34th & Vine.”
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“If you go to 34th & Vine, you’ll encounter, there, a traffic-roundabout.”
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Every “fact” in this physical world can be regarded as a proposition that is at least part of the antecedent of some implications, and is the consequent of other implications.
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For example:
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A set of hypothetical physical quantity-values, and a hypothetical relation among them (called a “physical hypothesis, theory or law) together comprise the antecedent of a hypothetical implication.
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…except that one of those hypothetical physical quantity-values can be taken as the consequent of that implication.
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A true mathematical theorem is an implication whose antecedent includes at least a set of mathematical axioms.
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Instead of one world of “Is”…
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…infinitely-many worlds of “If”.
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We’re used to declarative, indicative, grammar because it’s convenient. But conditional grammar adequately describes our physical world. We tend to unduly believe our grammar.
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You, as the protagonist of your hypothetical life-experience-story, are complementary with your experiences and surroundings in that story. You and they comprise the two complementary parts of that hypothetical story.
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By definition that story is about your experience. It’s for you, and you’re central to it. It wouldn’t be an experience-story without you. So I suggest that Consciousness is primary in the describable realm, or at least in its own part(s) of it.
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That’s why I say that you’re the reason why you’re in a life. It has nothing to do with your parents, who were only part of the overall physical mechanism in the context of this physical world. Of course consistency in your story requires that there be evidence of a physical mechanism for the origin of the physical animal that you are.
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Among the infinity of hypothetical life-experience-stories, there timelessly is one with you as protagonist. That protagonist, with his inclinations and predispositions, his “Will to Life”, is why you’re in a life.
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The requirement for an experience-story is that it be consistent. …because there are no such things as inconsistent facts, even abstract ones.
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Obviously a person’s experience isn’t just about logic and mathematics. But your story’s requirement for consistency requires that the physical events and things in the physical world that you experience are consistent. That inevitably brings logic into your story.
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And of course, if you closely examine the physical world and its workings, then the mathematical relations in the physical world will be part of your experience. …as they also are when you read about what physicists have found by such close examinations of sthe physical world and its workings.
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There have been times when new physical observations seemed inconsistent with existing physical laws. Again and again, newly discovered physical laws showed a consistent system of which the previously seemingly-inconsistent observations are part. But of course there remain physical observations that still aren’t explained by currently-known physical law. Previous experience suggests that those observations, too, at least potentially, will be encompassed by new physics.
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Likely, physical explanations consisting of physical things and laws that, themselves, will later be explained by newly-discovered physical things and laws, will be an endless open-ended process…at least until such time as, maybe, further examination will be thwarted by inaccessibly small regions, large regions, or high energies. …even though that open-ended explanation is there in principle.
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A few questions:
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1. If you think that this physical world is other than, or more than, what I’ve described it as—If you believe that this physical universe is “objectively existent” or “objectively real” or “actual” or “substantial” or “substantive” in a way that the physical world as I’ve described it…
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…as the setting of your hypothetical life-experience story, which is a complex system of inter-referring abstract implications about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things…
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…then what do you mean by “”objectively existent”, “objectively real”, “actual”, “substantial”, or “substantive”?
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2. In what context, other than its own, or the context of our lives, do you want or believe this physical universe to be real &/or existent? What would it mean to say that this physical world has absolute objective fundamental independent existence?...or some specified kind of existence that the hypothetical experience-stories that I describe don't have?
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These discussions always end with the other person not answering these questions.
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Michael Ossipoff


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Just as I claim no “existence” or “reality” for abstract implications, — Michael Ossipoff

It seems to me that saying "There are hypothetical abstract implications" is claiming existence of them. So either I don't understand what you mean by "there are" or I don't understand what you mean by "claim existence" or both .

to address these as an antinatalist would:
1- I don’t get what you’re saying sorry
2- But you don’t have the right to take that risk with someone else’s life. Would it be okay to kidnap someone because you think they’ll come to enjoy the kidnapping later? Of course not, even if there was a chance they would. It is immoral to take an action that risks harming someone else when you could otherwise not take that action and not be harmed yourself

1- By objectively real I mean unalterable by my thoughts about it
2- It would mean that they are unalterable by me

What you just proposed is essentailly just the objective world. You have a story that you can’t alter. That’s all I need to say something is objective. Your model runs into the massive issue of “who made this story and what makes it consistent” because I’d say THATS the cause of my story not me. It’s like how every hypothetical world you imagine is imagined by you (obviously) so who is imagining this world I’m living in right now and how in the heck is he so damned focused.

So yea that’s my opinion of your proposition but’s I don’t really want to discuss this in this thread as it is unrelated. Also I don’t understand how your position is supposed to mean that I’m the cause of my own existence. If I was I would at least remember setting the rules for this dang reality. Also if I was truly the author of this life story, let’s just say there would be a few changes.

Also why do you end all your posts with your name?

Khaled