Combining your DNA and you partners is using physical forces to make someone exist. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, but that's not using force on someone.

I think my own preferences are completely irrelevant to my hypothetical offspring preferences.

I think if your offspring share your values and preferences that is either, coincidence, indoctrination or genetics.

I do not belief my own desires and values are adequate grounds to make someone else exist.

Yes, but that's not using force on someone — Terrapin Station

I didn't make that claim but I think this is a semantic quibble. Physical Force including biochemical aspects is the only way to create a child.

There is no sense in which the child is choosing or that nature is forcing the parent automatically or that the child has expressed a preference and made a contract.

There is also hypothetical preferences and probability about the future. I don't need to throw a brick at a window to make a safe assumption it will shatter. A child does not need to exists for you to make hypothetical about the nature of existence based just on prior peoples experiences.

There is no sense in which the child is choosing or that nature is forcing the parent automatically or that the child has expressed a preference and made a contract. — Andrew4Handel

Right, but there's no sense in which the child is being forced, either. It can't do anything, and we can't do anything to it, until it exists.

Making the child exist is an act of force and then its experiences are forced on it (by its nervous system etc).

I don't see how you can describe the creation of a child as not an act of force.
To create someone who has his or her own desires and volition undermines their desires and volition because they exist based on the parents desires.

I just think it is forcing something on someone because once they start to exist experiences they didn't choose are forced on them because of a decision by the parent.

Now imagine I asked you "Do you want a massage"? You would likely not want me to start massaging you without your consent and you would probably want me to find out your desire. But a child does not have this luxury. The fact the child cannot express desires or preferences before you created it means that anything experiences initially is forced onto it.

Most people really value consent but then are happy to create a child knowing it did not consent to the things it inevitably experiences. I have had numerous experiences I didn't consent to, like having a dysfunctional family, going to church several days a week throughout childhood, going to school and being bullied etc. To me creating a child is the biggest infringement of consent with life long consequences.

I think the status of a child prior to birth is irrelevant and a quibble though. We are quite capable of imagining before we act. I don't have to rape someone before deciding rape is wrong. There are lot of valuable concepts including numbers that don't exist physically.

How else do you propose someone do ethics then? Your own ethical rules result in a clear absurdity for me and that is "hiring a hitman is not wrong". I truly don't understand how you can hold this view. What about putting someone in a cage with a starving lion and no defenses? After all, it's the lion that is doing all the work not the person.

I was gone for a few days so I'll just start replying to random interesting posts I see here

Sure, that sounds right. But I emphasize that you, as the protagonist/experiencer, are one of the two complementary components of your experience-story, rather than only a passive result of it. — Michael Ossipoff

I understand but that makes having children even MORE immoral. My parents were part of the cause I was born into this world where suffering is possible. Now imagine if everyone in every possible life story where suffering is possible decided not to have children (became antinatalists). In that case ONLY life stories where no suffering exists would be left. Therefore let's start by preventing birth in this world so that fewer people/sous/experiencers whatever you want to call them have to experience the unpleasantness of a life story with pain

The antinatalist does not need to be pessimistic in the least. Your comment is attacking the antinatalist and not antinatalism which I find to be a much more repugnant way of arguing. Here is my analogy of antinatalism: There is a kid in a cryo chamber but you cannot see him clearly. Right now the kid is experiencing no pleasure and no pain. You can turn off the cryo chamber and free the kid but the panel next to the switch says "Beware: 7% chance this child is severely disabled and will suffer tremendously for the rest of his life". Do you pull the switch?

Personally, I am not an antinatalist but only under certain conditions. I believe the only way pulling the switch, in that case, is moral is if you are willing to put the kid back in the cryo chamber if he asks (Euthanasia). If you are not willing to make that commitment then no, you should not pull that switch

Basically, the main antinatalist argument is: we are all gonna die sometime, so why not sooner, why not being born at all? What is gained by "living"?

Are there any good modern refutations to Global Antinatalism? — OP

No because it's a fact that the Neanderthal all killed themselves because they realized that they lacked a decent tumble dryer! Oh how great their suffering must've been!! :cry:

Making the child exist is an act of force and then its experiences are forced on it (by its nervous system etc). — Andrew4Handel

It's not an act of force on the child. You can't do anything to the child until it exists. It seems like that's going in one ear and out the other.

It's not an act of force on the child — Terrapin Station

It is an act of force that directly impacts the child and has lifelong consequences not of their choosing.

After you have been born you have experiences that you did not chose after you have lived for several years and when you reach the age you can think about suicide having to kill yourself to escape from a life you didn't chose is another things forced on you.

Another example is people who have genetic illnesses that will almost certainly be passed onto a child.The parents know before hand what condition the child will likely inherit and have to deal with.

Because the thing being created has volition and desires these can inevitably be thwarted as soon as the person starts to exist.

Forcing someone into existence is not forcing something on someone but it is an act of force to begin somethings existence without its consent. So any onus is on the creator.

I am not sure what rests on your quibble.

It seems that the post that was supposed to critique antinatalism has been taken over by antinatalists arguing FOR antinatalism. Not that that's a bad thing. Do you think that if there was a global right to death that that would make birth moral? You say there is no point in birth but there clearly is one. The whole point is to maintain a society and a working force. If you don't have those YOU suffer severely so birth is an imposition but it is done out of need not whim. Sure you can get by without kids but you can't get by if no one has kids. Which is why I think a global right to die, that would ensure any child who gets forced into this situation called life can leave painlessly would make forcing them into the situation ethical. It's like theft but the thief returns what he stole if you ask him for it. Not really theft anymore is it?

”Sure, that sounds right. But I emphasize that you, as the protagonist/experiencer, are one of the two complementary components of your experience-story, rather than only a passive result of it.” — Michael Ossipoff
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I understand but that makes having children even MORE immoral. My parents were part of the cause I was born into this world where suffering is possible.

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They were part of the physical mechanism, not really the cause.
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Do I blame my parents? Of course. …for being parents when they were entirely unqualified to be parents. But I only blame them in the limited context of this physical world. They’re better described as one shabby and despicable part of the resulting mechanism than as part of the cause. Ultimately, they aren’t the reason why I was born, or why I was born in a world like this one, or why I was born to such lousy parents.
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Why did I have parents like them? Well, most a likely a world with people like them, in general, and parents like them, in particular, are part of the physical world that’s consistent with the person that I was. …the person who was/is the protagonist of the life-experience story of which I and my surroundings are the two mutually-complementary parts. I mean, it was a matter of what kind of people would beget the person that I was in that hypothetical experience-story.
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For example, if someone is a fiend, then what kind of parents are likely to have produced a fiend like that? They’re part of the story. Presto—parents made to order.
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And, by the way, I’m not saying that every life is a reincarnation. There’d have been an initial first-life, one that isn’t a continuation of someone of a previous story.
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But I suggest that there’s no reason why anyone would be born into a societal-world like this one, unless they’d gotten themselves into a major moral-snarl, over a number of lifetimes, digging themselves deeper each time.
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Why would someone’s first life be in a societal-world like this one? I say it wouldn’t.
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Who knows what we did, in order to be born in a societal-world like this one. …but I’d say it wasn’t very nice.
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What are you in for?
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Who knows.
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Now imagine if everyone in every possible life story where suffering is possible decided not to have children (became antinatalists).

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Wait. Right there you’re saying a contradiction. That’s contrary to the definition and nature of hypothetical stories. There are infinitely-many, and there are all of them, including the bad societal worlds in which hardly anyone is an anti-natalist. …like this one, for example.
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There inevitably was/is this hypothetical physical world (…and infinitely other bad societal worlds with reproduction going on).
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In that case ONLY life stories where no suffering exists would be left.

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That’s impossible, because there are all of the hypothetical life-experience stories, including the ones that are in bad societal-worlds with reproduction. There’s no such thing as “if the people in those worlds didn’t reproduce”, because that isn’t the nature of those stories (…of which there are inevitably all kinds, including all the ones without many antinatalists.) The “if” that you refer to is about a limited separate class of the worlds of “If”.
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Therefore let's start by preventing birth in this world so that fewer people/souls/experiencers whatever you want to call them have to experience the unpleasantness of a life story with pain.

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I agree in the sense that we don’t want to be part of the mechanism for a bad-story. Yes there inevitably are life-experience-stories in bad societal-worlds, and some of those stories can be quite bad. But that doesn’t mean that I want to be part of such a story about the beginning of a life in a bad societal-world.
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We aren’t without responsibility for our actions in this life, and I acknowledge that.
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So, I agree with anti-natalism in that sense.
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…aside from the pragmatic fact that it’s better if we don’t make this planet too crowded.
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Michael Ossipoff

The “if” that you refer to is about a limited separate class of the worlds of “If”. — Michael Ossipoff

But of course such a world can't be the setting for a life-experience story. ...any more than could a physical universe that can't support life.

Michael Ossipoff

Well, maybe a world of immortal robots.

Michael Ossipoff

I’m saying the antinatalist position is untenable for non-pussies. It’s radical avoidance of potential suffering at the cost of literally everything. Bad approach to life, I promise.

It’s reasonable to decide you shouldn’t have kids. But it’s villain-level confused narcissism to think you’ve discovered that nobody should.

It is an act of force that directly impacts the child — Andrew4Handel

It doesn't directly impact the child prior to or even at the moment of conception.

it is an act of force to begin somethings existence without its consent. — Andrew4Handel

Consent is a category error because there's nothing to grant or withhold consent.

I don't see how you can describe the creation of a child as not an act of force. — Andrew4Handel

It's not an act of force against someone a la it being a consent issue, which is the emotional conflation you're shooting for by using that language.

It's an act of force in the way that opening a beer bottle is an act of force. In other words, it takes an application of physical forces to produce a particular effect.

Nietzsche' s "Last Man" is antinatalist, right? While the "Ubermensch" is life affirming, life-wanting, despite all the pain and agony of life???

How else do you propose someone do ethics then? Your own ethical rules result in a clear absurdity for me and that is "hiring a hitman is not wrong". I truly don't understand how you can hold this view. What about putting someone in a cage with a starving lion and no defenses? After all, it's the lion that is doing all the work not the person. — khaled

I'm not sure what you're responding to. How else than what do I propose "someone do ethics"?

Again, the way that everyone really does ethics, whether they believe/realize this or not, is by intuiting how they feel about interpersonal behavior.

And yeah, different people feel different ways about the same things.

Re the lion thing, lions aren't making choices that make them culpable for attacking someone, and I wouldn't think it's cool to lock someone in a cage nonconsensually, lion or not. Not because of some overarching principle, though.

But the belief changes from what is a fairly commonplace belief to something else that rejects the entirety of the world because of suffering. — Moliere

What agenda would you put above preventing suffering in the unique case of procreation. In this situation you can prevent, all future suffering for a new person altogether, with no actual person but the parents' own projection deprived. Sometimes commonplace beliefs are misguided, unreflective, and sometimes the truth is hard to hear because it is depressing. No one needs to be born to carry out the parents' idea of what is valuable. De facto, at the least, the parents are unintentionally putting adversity above harm as adversity is very much a part of the equation of life. If you think adversity, or the collateral damage of too much undo adversity, is not something to consider, then you fall into the Nietzschean camp.. See above in my correspondence with TheHedoMinimalist here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/236652 . You think experience should be lived out for the sake of experience, even though there is no a priori reason for experience to be lived out.

It should also be considered, that if we are going to do stochastic models (which I don't think even need to be considered in this case of procreation), then it should be noted that we live in an on average mediocre average universe with a mix and range of harms, goods, and for the most part it is very neutral to mildly annoying/negative for many on a daily basis. Sometimes there's peaks and flow states, genuine catharsis in laughter and entertainment, etc. but on the whole very mediocre. Now remember, this isn't even something I consider because fully preventing harm is enough a reason for me to consider, but I don't see the carrying on of a mediocre existence as moral either. Since we know this universe is a mixed bag, that is even enough to prevent future people from experiencing it. Why would I want to promote the agenda of a mediocre range of good and bad experiences for a future person? This imperfect version of the "preventing harm above all else" is just a more pedestrian way to get the idea across for those who like to "weigh" the good and bad, which again, is not the utilitarian version I think is appropriate for this procreational scenario (though it may be for those already born looking to weight outcomes and have no other recourse since already alive).

It doesn't directly impact the child prior to or even at the moment of conception. — Terrapin Station

This is rhetorical blather. You know that procreation is the direct cause of someone else's existence. This whole "there's nobody there until they are there thing" denies the very cause of the person being there to exist in the first place. And being there in the first place is what exposes someone to the adversity/harms of life. That is the point. Now decisions HAVE to be made. Adversity HAS to be overcome. Try a new argument.

This is rhetorical blather. — schopenhauer1

He said that you're forcing something upon someone by procreating. You're not. "You're forcing something on someone by procreating" is ontological blather.

"Procreation is the direct causes of someone" is fine. Maybe he should have said that instead.

I'm not denying anything about what causes someone to exist. I made that clear by saying "It's an act of force in the way that opening a beer bottle is an act of force. In other words, it takes an application of physical forces to produce a particular effect."

I'm objecting to this language: "You're forcing something on someone by procreating."

What agenda would you put above preventing suffering in the unique case of procreation — schopenhauer1

My line of thinking here isn't about promoting an agenda, but rather what it takes for there to be an agenda in the first place. If there is no one for whom we are preventing suffering, then we are directing our actions towards who isn't real. It's not that we're preventing suffering, it's that we're so against the world that we find ourselves in that it would be better for it to be gone. In your response, I believe, I have support for this in your language here:

it should be noted that we live in an on average mediocre average universe with a mix and range of harms, goods, and for the most part it is very neutral to mildly annoying/negative for many on a daily basis. — schopenhauer1

The prevention of suffering isn't the belief your anti-natalist position comes from, but rather your belief about the state of the world. It's that there is suffering in the first place, for you at least, that makes the world something worth anihiliating as long as we do so without causing yet even more suffering overtly.

And that's a very different argument than relying upon the belief that suffering is bad and should be prevented (to the extent possible).

The prevention of suffering isn't the belief your anti-natalist position comes from, but rather your belief about the state of the world. It's that there is suffering in the first place, for you at least, that makes the world something worth anihiliating as long as we do so without causing yet even more suffering overtly.

And that's a very different argument than relying upon the belief that suffering is bad and should be prevented (to the extent possible). — Moliere

No, you are purposely using my argument against me in a way I overtly said in the last post it shouldn't be used. I purposely said that this is an imperfect argument for the reasons you brought up. Since this is about the state of the world in the sense of stochastic harms and goods that can befall someone in greater or lesser variance it makes the argument hinge on statistics rather than axiological principles of harm. Hence, the more absolute and stronger argument is preventing suffering, period.

You say that there is no agenda, but I don't see how that is the case. If preventing harm isn't the number one priority, then it is something else, and that something else is the agenda. It can be seeing someone go through the encultration process, grow, learn, have to navigate the world. This requires at least some level of adversity, Beyond the usual adversity of encultration is the collateral damage of unforeseen and undo suffering beyond that. Either way, both forms of adversity are real, and they are being put as a priority above the principle of preventing harm. Providing opportunities for pleasure for someone who does not exist to need them would also be a moot point, if that person is also exposed to real harms/adversity. Sure, this is about what one prioritizes, but it is hard to justify anything other than preventing harm for those who do not already exist to need anything in the first place.

Let's just stick to your stronger argument, then -- as I haven't justified much of anything in this thread, I've been concerning myself with the arguments for anti-natalism, and how they justify themselves.

Prevent suffering. (injunction)
Universal birth-prevents fulfills this better than anything else, because then there is no suffering.
So, we should not have children to fulfill this injunction.


That's what I pick up from what you are saying. What I'm getting at is that the injunction "prevent suffering" is developed in a world of people, people who are real, who feel suffering. So universal birth-prevention undermines the very basis on which such an injunction is formulated -- and therefore does not prevent suffering as much as it annihilates our ability to prevent suffering in the first place, and so does not fulfill the (commonly accepted) injunction. Universal birth-prevention is aimed at, given its consequences, the feelings of people who will not exist, which is absurd given that our ethical actions are not normally directed at what will not exist.

With birth comes real suffering, but without it comes nothing at all.

I purposely said that this is an imperfect argument for the reasons you brought up. Since this is about the state of the world in the sense of stochastic harms and goods that can befall someone in greater or lesser variance it makes the argument hinge on statistics rather than axiological principles of harm. Hence, the more absolute and stronger argument is preventing suffering, period. — schopenhauer1

What? I need to go back and read whatever post this is supposed to be referring to, but "the more 'absolute' and stronger moral argument" isn't going to follow from anything.

but it is hard to justify anything other than preventing harm — schopenhauer1

The only way any moral stances are "justified" period is by someone feeling however they do.

That's a good point in that "preventing suffering" is incoherent if no one exists. People need to exist for preventing suffering to amount to anything at all.

I haven't read every post in the thread. Did you ever say what your personal view is about all of this stuff?