1. It means that the harm of coming into existence extends far beyond the presence of bad things. The infinite deprivation of good things in life is also an infinite harm relative to non-existence. For example, there is an infinite amount of pleasure that I am deprived of(because I cannot experience an eternal orgasm, for example) and that is bad only because I am a being who is deprived of that pleasure. This seems highly counterintuitive to me.

2. It means that bringing a being into existence that can be deprived of some good things in life but is inflicted with no bad things in life would still be harmful. That is because the deprivation of pleasure is bad compared to the case of nonexistence where there's no one deprived and therefore no one harmed by the absence of pleasure. To me, this is even more counterintuitive than thinking that X beings are not worse off than humans by not being able to experience pleasure. It implies that bringing a child into existence is bad even if that child experiences nothing bad but simply doesn't have as many good things in life as she could have. — TheHedoMinimalist

You did a great job bridging utilitarian antinatalism with philosophical pessimism/structural antinatalism. Structural antinatalists (like myself) would say that life is always suffering due to the deprivation of desires and wants which are endless. Satisfaction is short-lived, and similar to Heraclitus' idea that all is flux, we are never in a state of complete satisfaction, but always thrown upon the world in the pendulum swing of NOW needing to work to survive, NOW needing to maintain comfort levels (do laundry, clean our house, etc.), NOW needing to entertain our complex brains (we get bored and have to always look for more novelty, more flow states, etc. etc.). Indeed, even the pleasures may not really be so fully good as the flip side is the deprivation that it reveals in the human condition.

You did a great job bridging utilitarian antinatalism with philosophical pessimism/structural antinatalism. Structural antinatalists (like myself) would say that life is always suffering due to the deprivation of desires and wants which are endless. Satisfaction is short-lived, and similar to Heraclitus' idea that all is flux, we are never in a state of complete satisfaction, but always thrown upon the world in the pendulum swing of NOW needing to work to survive, NOW needing to maintain comfort levels (do laundry, clean our house, etc.), NOW needing to entertain our complex brains (we get bored and have to always look for more novelty, more flow states, etc. etc.). Indeed, even the pleasures may not really be so fully good as the flip side is the deprivation that it reveals in the human condition. — schopenhauer1

If you think that everyone is regularly suffering, and that suffering includes things like needing to do laundry, then suffering isn't something to be concerned with on any moral level. Some subset of suffering might be something to be concerned with, but suffering in general wouldn't be.

If you think that everyone is regularly suffering, and that suffering includes things like needing to do laundry, then suffering isn't something to be concerned with on any moral level. Some subset of suffering might be something to be concerned with, but suffering in general wouldn't be. — Terrapin Station

It isn't the activities that result from the suffering, it is the lack that is there in the first place. It is not an immediate physical pain. It is your willing animal nature. Yes, it is baked into the definition of being an animal, so the subtly probably goes above your head as to how lack equates with suffering. Not all concepts of suffering are of the course physical/immediate kind that you think only justifies moral categorizing.

I didn't say I had any problem with calling it suffering. I said that if it's suffering, then suffering isn't at all sufficient for moral concern.

I didn't say I had any problem with calling it suffering. I said that if it's suffering, then suffering isn't at all sufficient for moral concerns. — Terrapin Station

Sure it is, and one clever part of Benatar's argument is that the different thresholds in starting a life and continuing a life. I would take the hard stance that in matters of starting a life, just the structural suffering alone is enough to prevent birth. However, I don't think it is necessarily a threshold to discontinue life once born. Now, if we combine the fact that life is structural suffering AND contingent suffering (your more familiar harms based on circumstances of life), then the decision of whether to start a life is indeed weighted against birth. To go further, to provide a gauntlet of burdens to overcome, to provide pain in order to get stronger, to something that didn't exist to need to get strong is also morally suspect. As Bentar's example of getting sick and recovering fast versus never getting sick. Just because you have the ability to recover fast does not negate that it was better to never get sick. This is all the more so if no one existed in the first place to NEED to get sick (in order to recover). It would be a reckless and arbitrary value of wanting to see another person go through adversity. Adversity is then put as a premium above suffering, which I have many qualms with in terms of playing with people's lives, the arrogance of making someone else go through with this for your weighted preference for seeing someone struggle through adversity, and the collateral damage of the child going through more than a socially-approved form adversity. As I said earlier: Sure, if you already exist and have to endure certain forms of suffering to get to a "better place" mentally/socially/physically fine, but to CREATE a situation so that someone has to go through this, is suspect to me. There is too much collateral damage, too much assumptions of the existent on what the new person needs, wants, etc. In other words, there is a lot of arrogance in this idea of making people go through the gauntlet of life because that is just something someone wants to see carried out. Damn Nietzsche, damn the idea that people have to be born over and over to suffer through existence for its own sake! It is middle-class respectable savagery masquerading as pragmatic gentleman's morality.

Sure it is — schopenhauer1

"Sure it is" per what?

Um, did you read anything else? Ugh, I'm disappointed you associate your avatar with GD symbology. Shame.

Um, did you read anything else? — schopenhauer1

Yes, of course. Was the rest supposed to be justifying the basis for why suffering period, under that definition, would be worth moral concern? If so, I'll read it again with that in mind, but it didn't seem to me that anything that followed "Sure it is" was actually saying per what suffering period would be worth moral concern.

Yes I wrote a response focusing on thresholds for starting life vs. continuing life.

What does the concept of thresholds have to do with why suffering period, under the earlier definition, so that needing to do laundry, needing to clean house, etc. count as suffering, is worth moral concern?

Your view is that suffering period, under that definition, suggests not having children at all--the earlier part of the threshold..

My view is that suffering period, under that definition, doesn't suggest any moral stance whatsoever, sof any part of the threshold.

So per what does suffering period suggest anything moral with respect to any threshold?

What does the concept of thresholds have to do with why suffering period, under the earlier definition, so that needing to do laundry, needing to clean house, etc. count as suffering, is worth moral concern? — Terrapin Station

It represents having a lack. Why create situations of lack, (and adversity) for something that doesn't need to? To put a put a premium on adversity or responsibility or strength through activity? Psst.. not strong enough reasons to pass the threshold of STARTING a life. In fact its creating a negative situation where there was none.

Why create situations of lack, (and adversity) for something that doesn't need to? — schopenhauer1

Right, so in my view, lack is not at all sufficient for moral concern. "Why create situations of lack" is a morally null question, because creating situations of lack is not sufficient for moral concern.

You're arguing that it is sufficient for moral concern. So I'm asking you on the basis of what is it sufficient for moral concern?

Right, so in my view,
Yep moral considerations are all views with justifications, keep that in mind. Vegans also think meat eating is morally wrong, but that's just their view, man.

lack is not at all sufficient for moral concern. "Why create situations of lack" is a morally null question, because creating situations of lack is not sufficient for moral concern.
And I disagree as I think a lack is a negative.

You're arguing that it is sufficient for moral concern. So I'm asking you on the basis of what is it sufficient for moral concern? — Terrapin Station

I just told you- creating situations of lack, and more strongly, adversity for something when there was nothing there to originally experience lack or adversity is sufficient for moral concern. To make something experience a situation of lack when there need not be lack, is wrong. It is prioritizing adversity or overcoming which I also think is wrong to do for others.

Ugh, I'm disappointed you associate your avatar with GD symbology. Shame — schopenhauer1

What is GD symbology?

creating situations of lack, and more strongly, adversity for something when there was nothing there to originally experience lack or adversity is sufficient for moral concern. To make something experience a situation of lack when there need not be lack, is wrong. — schopenhauer1

Okay, but I don't at all agree with that. "Creating situations of lack" is not at all sufficient to be a moral concern, especially when it refers to things like having to do laundry or clean house.

You did a great job bridging utilitarian antinatalism with philosophical pessimism/structural antinatalism. Structural antinatalists (like myself) would say that life is always suffering due to the deprivation of desires and wants which are endless. Satisfaction is short-lived, and similar to Heraclitus' idea that all is flux, we are never in a state of complete satisfaction, but always thrown upon the world in the pendulum swing of NOW needing to work to survive, NOW needing to maintain comfort levels (do laundry, clean our house, etc.), NOW needing to entertain our complex brains (we get bored and have to always look for more novelty, more flow states, etc. etc.). Indeed, even the pleasures may not really be so fully good as the flip side is the deprivation that it reveals in the human condition. — schopenhauer1

Suppose there is a being that is incapable of experiencing any kind of negative emotion that normally comes with deprivation and dissatisfaction. The experience of that being ranges from extreme pleasure to mild pleasure. Whenever the being experiences mild pleasure, he is deprived of extreme pleasure. But he doesn't care at all that he is deprived(that is because he can't experience any negative emotion or mental state at all). Despite that, you would still call that deprivation(even though I think that's a disputable definition of deprivation). But I'm not interested in arguing with you about the meaning of the word deprivation, rather I would like to know why you think that the deprivation is bad. It's hard for me to see how the deprivation could be bad if the deprived person doesn't experience any negative emotion from the deprivation or care that he's deprived.

You pick the outcome and not the cause for rhetorical purposes. But if we are going to go down this absurd route between a situation where the only thing that exists in the universe is that someone feels the discomfort of dirty clothes and has to do laundry or non-existence.. then non-existence is still the correct choice as no lack was created.

So you are describing a non human situation? Is it relevant?

It is relevant if you are arguing that "life is always suffering due to the deprivation of desires and wants which are endless." That is because you are implying that the fact that something is a deprivation makes it bad even if no one experiences negative mental states because of that deprivation. In addition, the deprivation seems to be infinitely bad on your view. That is because under your definition of deprivation, you don't even have to desire the thing you are supposedly deprived of, in order to be harmfully deprived. My question goes as follows: is it the case that, even if there's no one experiencing negative emotion or having desires violated because of an absence of pleasure, an absence of pleasure in a being could still be called a deprivation and the presence of that deprivation in a being is still a bad thing? Is the mere fact that it could be called a deprivation make the supposed outcome bad and why?

My question goes as follows: is it the case that, even if there's no one experiencing negative emotion or having desires violated because of an absence of pleasure, an absence of pleasure in a being could still be called a deprivation and the presence of that deprivation in a being is still a bad thing? Is the mere fact that it could be called a deprivation make the supposed outcome bad and why? — TheHedoMinimalist

If no negative states were attached to the deprivation then the outcome is not bad. I would just like to see a human with no negative states due to deprivation. Perhaps these are the mystical enlightened ones. Buddhism is based on lessening attachment to desire. Schopenhauer's only salvation was to become an austere ascetic and possibly die due to starvation without care.

Again, I don't at all agree that a mere lack of something is sufficient to suggest that we have a moral issue at hand.

So when we don't agree on that, how do we resolve it?

If no negative states were attached to the deprivation then the outcome is not bad. I would just like to see a human with no negative states due to deprivation. Perhaps these are the mystical enlightened ones. Buddhism is based on lessening attachment to desire. Schopenhauer's only salvation was to become an austere ascetic and possibly die due to starvation without care. — schopenhauer1

Ok, so what you just said seems to imply that you don't accept the following implications of accepting Benetar's argument and rejecting P2 of my X being argument:

1. It means that the harm of coming into existence extends far beyond the presence of bad things. The infinite deprivation of good things in life is also an infinite harm relative to non-existence. For example, there is an infinite amount of pleasure that I am deprived of(because I cannot experience an eternal orgasm, for example) and that is bad only because I am a being who is deprived of that pleasure. This seems highly counterintuitive to me.

2. It means that bringing a being into existence that can be deprived of some good things in life but is inflicted with no bad things in life would still be harmful. That is because the deprivation of pleasure is bad compared to the case of nonexistence where there's no one deprived and therefore no one harmed by the absence of pleasure. To me, this is even more counterintuitive than thinking that X beings are not worse off than humans by not being able to experience pleasure. It implies that bringing a child into existence is bad even if that child experiences nothing bad but simply doesn't have as many good things in life as she could have.

Because you think the presence of desire or deprivational suffering is a necessity for something to be called a "deprivation that qualifies as being bad", it cannot be the case that the badness of the deprivation is infinite(since I only have finite desires and experience a finite amount of deprivational suffering from the deprivation, thereby making the badness of the deprivation finite).

Now I would like to come back to my X Being argument:

P1: The presence of pleasure in human beings is an advantage over the absence of pleasure in X Beings.

P2: X Beings cannot be said to be deprived of pleasure because they never had a desire or appreciation for it in the first place. In addition, experiencing pleasure provides no instrumental benefit to them by alleviating deprivational or inflictional suffering. Furthermore, the absence of pleasure is necessary for an X Being to maintain its identity as an X Being(that means if a rare mutation makes a supposed X Being experience pleasure, scientists would reclassify the being as some other species rather than an X Being with good scientific justification)

C: Therefore, the presence of pleasure can be an advantage over the absence of pleasure even if there is no one for whom the absence is a deprivation.

Because there has to be some deprivational suffering occurring for the absence of pleasure to be a deprivation or there has to be a desire for pleasure at least, P2 must be true. Although X beings do experience deprivational suffering, the reason they experience it, is not because of an absence of pleasure(that is because they do not derive any pleasure from activities that alleviate their deprivational suffering). They also do not desire pleasure or comprehend the concept of pleasure, so they don't know what they are missing out on. Just like a dog cannot be deprived of intellectual pleasures(because they don't desire any), X beings cannot be deprived of pleasure in general.(because they don't desire or understand pleasure.)
If you accept that P2 is true, then you would either have to say that P1 is false or reject Benetar's asymmetry. I chose to reject Benetar's asymmetry because I don't think that the presence of desire or deprivational suffering could fully explain why it is bad to have an absence of pleasure.

One argument against a God is that if he exists he must be evil for creating all the suffering in the world or allowing all the suffering including children dying of bone cancer.

However, even if a God does exist he/she /it is not forcing people to procreate so people are choosing to bring offspring into a world they would condemn a deity for creating.

I think having a child is endorsing everything that happens in reality as suitable for your child.

I think both the religious and non religious can use God or Gods as a scapegoat for problems they are actually perpetuating themselves.

I know that if I create a child I will be responsible for all his or her future suffering and the possibility of grandchildren and further descendants suffering.

To me it is most brave to confront your own death and see what happens not to try and create some kind of immortality by having children.

Some people have children by accident. Some people can’t have children. Some people plan children. Some people don’t want children. I don’t think a suffering calculus goes on in the heads of people before engaging in sex. Then there are those who can’t get a sexual partner.

If you accept that P2 is true, then you would either have to say that P1 is false or reject Benetar's asymmetry. I chose to reject Benetar's asymmetry because I don't think that the presence of desire or deprivational suffering could fully explain why it is bad to have an absence of pleasure. — TheHedoMinimalist

The X Beings don't experience pleasure or get deprived of it. This is not good or bad. The humans experience pleasure, this is good. The non-existent potential child doesn't experience pleasure or get deprived of it, this is not good or bad.

What is GD symbology? — Noah Te Stroete

Grateful Dead

What is GD symbology?
— Noah Te Stroete

Grateful Dead — schopenhauer1

Okay. I thought it might be Gangster Disciples! Lol

Ok so it sounds to me like you're choosing to reject P1 then. That is to say that you don't think that the presence of pleasure in humans is an advantage over the absence of pleasure in X Beings for the same reason you don't think that the presence of pleasure in humans is an advantage over the absence of pleasure for potential beings.(that is to say that there's no deprivation present in either one of these cases of pleasure absences.) In that case, I guess we will have to agree to disagree since I think rejecting P1 would be more counterintuitive than rejecting Benetar's asymmetry. Feel free to provide me with an argument or a thought experiment for why Benetar's asymmetry is more intuitive than P1 in your opinion if you have one though.

Feel free to provide me with an argument or a thought experiment for why Benetar's asymmetry is more intuitive than P1 in your opinion if you have one though. — TheHedoMinimalist

Benatar's asymmetry is based on the idea that preventing harm is always good even if there is no actual person, where preventing pleasure is neither good nor bad (neutral) if there is no actual person. Pleasure just seems to not have moral precedent- it revolves around preventing harm more than prompting pleasure. Perhaps in a universe with 0 chance of harm, prompting pleasure would become the moral imperative. In a world where there is always some non-trivial harm, preventing harm is more important.

It is well known that life presents adversity. To have a child knowing that adversity exists would lead to the idea that you know your child will face adversity. This is doing a several things:
1) It puts adversity at a premium. Adversity is valued more than preventing harm. This to me seems odd.

2) It makes the decision for a future person that adversity should be something that should be experienced. This to me seems odd.

3) It ignores collateral damage. That the child will endure a type of adversity that is more than what the parents would have envisioned (not that any amount of creating adversity for a new person is justified, so this is kind of an imperfect version of the original idea that causing adversity when there was none previously is not good in the first place).

There is an assumption that life carries with it the value of experience itself. Going through this "gauntlet" of experience is somehow good for the individual. It is a quasi-religious idea but fails when compared to the idea that there is no writ-large universal principle that experience is something that needs to be had by individuals. Why do individuals have to experience the gauntlet of life in the first place, when prior to birth, there was no actual person who needed anything, good or bad? Why does a person have to go through the slings and arrows of existence in the first place? This is especially pertinent when harm is in the picture. Our known existence has harm. Bringing someone into a harmful existence because experience or adversity is seen as good, seems to be a difference in what values are primary in ethical considerations of birth. Adversity causes intentional harm to an individual, perhaps to create a person that will become stronger and more adept from the experiences. This to me doesn't seem necessary to do for someone else.

Long story short, the difference comes down to a difference in values for a future person. The antinatalist puts the value of prevention of harm above all else. The pro-birth (or limited pro-birth) position is that adversity and experiencing in general are more important than other considerations, even preventing harm.

It is well known that life presents adversity. — schopenhauer1

I don't think it's at all clear that most people have adversity as their dominant experience or to extent/to an interpretation that makes them miserable, etc.

What's odd is the antinatalist idea in light of the above fact.

Just what sort of person sees any adversity whatsoever, whether it's dominant, significant, etc. or not, as being so overwhelming that it suggests just trashing the whole thing?

It seems akin to an artist who would see even the slightest flaw in a work as a reason for not producing the work in the first place, hence we have an artist who simply never produces any work. But what would that artist's mindset have to be like to make the decision that even the slightest flaw in a work suggests that they simply shouldn't produce any work? It seems like it would have to be an unusually neurotic person who is obsessed with "perfection."