.

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. — Terrapin Station

Thanks. :)

That's what I think, at least. I'd characterize the effects of the universal anti-natalist as not so much preventing suffering, but rather preventing life -- and therefore preventing the ability to prevent suffering.

@khaled has said that he is interested in arguments, from the negative utilitarian position, that would counter the AN argument, and that he personally does not subscribe to this view.

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. — Terrapin Station

I wasn't addressing you. Stay in your lane, or make a more clear post to respond to.

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

I've already explained my position on that. We agreed to disagree on the "feeling" of the matter. And then you reopened this for rhetorical points. Good job.

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. — Moliere

Ok, you have two arguments going on there and they are kind of separate ones.
One argument is that by preventing people, the injunction itself is annihilated. I just don't see the problem. If there are no people, the injunction is unnecessary. As long as there is the option for procreation, would this be an issue. This is supposed to be some sort of "tree falls in the woods" conundrum that I don't think really has any bearing because as stated, only in cases of decisions of procreation exist does the injunction matter. Otherwise, it's not an issue.

The other argument is that it does not fulfill commonly accepted injunctions of aiming at things that do exist, but rather it aims at the feelings of people who will not exist. Again, I don't see a problem. The people that could exist will suffer, don't have make this condition an actuality. It is odd because it is about procreation which is the only instance when life as a whole can be considered rather than various decisions of someone who is already born. This is not about improving or getting a better angle on some issue in this or that situation, but situations as a whole. That does make this unique which is why I see it as THE philosophical issue, more important than other ethical matters. Should we expose new people to suffering is the issue? However, what other priorities should take place. You didn't propose anything, but if the answer is other than harm, clearly an agenda is there, unstated. The agenda could be to form a family, to watch a new person overcome the adversities of life, etc. Either way, the parent is wanting something to happen from this birth. The non-intuitive notion, that is still valid despite being non-intuitive or unfamiliar, is that anything other than preventing harm does not need to take place, if there was no actual person to need that particular agenda to take place.

↪Terrapin Station
@khaled has said that he is interested in arguments, from the negative utilitarian position, that would counter the AN argument, and that he personally does not subscribe to this view. — Moliere

Right. I was curious what his view actually is, though.

I wasn't addressing you. — schopenhauer1

Someone needs to learn how public boards work. ;-)

If you want to address just one person, private message them.

I've already explained my position on that. — schopenhauer1

That's fine, but I'm going to point out the facts when you seem to suggest stuff that's wrong.

Someone needs to learn how public boards work. ;-)

If you want to address just one person, private message them. — Terrapin Station

Yes, I know how they work. Certain people want to post like a troll to incite rather than insight. Could just be your online or real life personality \_(ツ)_/¯

That's fine, but I'm going to point out the facts when you seem to suggest stuff that's wrong. — Terrapin Station

But you haven't, so it's extra annoying ;). We addressed this when I actually agreed that this was about prioritizing what was important- based on someone's intuition or feeling. The axiology falls from there. You have not presented anything earth shattering :roll: . I find preventing harm a pretty decent place to start, in light of the fact that no one needs X agenda if they don't exist to need it already.

Yes, I know how they work. Certain people want to post like a troll to incite rather than insight. — schopenhauer1

Do you define "trolling" so that trolling is possible if one is being honest? Just curious. And yeah, I'm exactly the same online and offline.

Re the other part, "when you seem to suggest," which is necessarily about how I'm interpreting what you're writing. If you don't disagree with me, then why respond with a bickerish post? You don't want to ever agree with me?

One argument is that by preventing people, the injunction itself is annihilated. I just don't see the problem. If there are no people, the injunction is unnecessary. As long as there is the option for procreation, would this be an issue. This is supposed to be some sort of "tree falls in the woods" conundrum that I don't think really has any bearing because as stated, only in cases of decisions of procreation exist does the injunction matter. Otherwise, it's not an issue. — schopenhauer1

I don't know if it's an issue as much as I would say that you should rephrase your argument -- because it's not the injunction that matters to you. Suffering matters -- suffering matters so much to yourself that you believe people shouldn't even exist because their life is bound up with suffering. But that isn't really what most people mean when they say they believe that preventing suffering is good.

So saying that preventing suffering is good sort of conflates, or at least confuses, where you're coming from -- it's not a commonly held belief, but rather something that is specific to the anti-natalist. The presence of suffering is so bad that life shouldn't exist. Whereas most people see the worth in preventing harm, they also don't think that preventing all of human life from continuing is a good way to go about that - and I'd argue from these considerations that it isn't from some kind of problem of consistency, but because your belief is actually very different from what people really mean by saying that the prevention of suffering is a good.

The other argument is that it does not fulfill commonly accepted injunctions of aiming at things that do exist, but rather it aims at the feelings of people who will not exist. Again, I don't see a problem. The people that could exist will suffer, don't have make this condition an actuality. It is odd because it is about procreation which is the only instance when life as a whole can be considered rather than various decisions of someone who is already born. This is not about improving or getting a better angle on some issue in this or that situation, but situations as a whole. That does make this unique which is why I see it as THE philosophical issue, more important than other ethical matters. Should we expose new people to suffering is the issue? However, what other priorities should take place. You didn't propose anything, but if the answer is other than harm, clearly an agenda is there, unstated. The agenda could be to form a family, to watch a new person overcome the adversities of life, etc. Either way, the parent is wanting something to happen from this birth. The non-intuitive notion, that is still valid despite being non-intuitive or unfamiliar, is that anything other than preventing harm does not need to take place, if there was no actual person to need that particular agenda to take place. — schopenhauer1

The issue, at least from my perspective, is that you're treating non-existent persons as the same as persons. These are persons who will not be, given your prescription, so it's not even the same as considering people who will be -- such as responsibilities to future generations. From this post I gather that the difference between these persons and fictional persons is that you believe that procreation is the only action where the entirety of life can be considered.

If I'm right in reading you so, then that's progress! :D I did say before that you at least needed some reason to differentiate the two from each other.

But here again I think we can see why it is the anti-natalist argument tends to fall on deaf ears. Why does it matter that we are able to evalaute the entirety of life? And, in fact, don't most persons view the entirety of life as a good thing? Perhaps if they thought suffering was so bad that any amount of it is a good reason to eliminate it by any means necessary they wouldn't think so. But most people are more tolerant of the existence of suffering than this. To the point that, in spite of life being full of suffering -- and I am not at all convinced that there is more pleasure than suffering in life, so please don't mistake me as giving the usual utilitarian retort that the pleasure outweighs suffering -- we also value life as an end unto itself.

And also I really don't think I'm misrepresenting you at all in saying that your target isn't suffering as much as it is life itself. As you say -- procreation is the only instance when life as a whole can be considered. So your target is life, not suffering -- suffering, in any amount, is what makes life bad, for you, but your injunction is not "prevent suffering" as much as it is "prevent life, because any suffering at all is bad, and this is the only way to eliminate suffering".

Does that strike you as right or wrong, in terms of my depiction of your argument?

But here again I think we can see why it is the anti-natalist argument tends to fall on deaf ears. Why does it matter that we are able to evalaute the entirety of life? And, in fact, don't most persons view the entirety of life as a good thing? Perhaps if they thought suffering was so bad that any amount of it is a good reason to eliminate it by any means necessary they wouldn't think so. But most people are more tolerant of the existence of suffering than this. To the point that, in spite of life being full of suffering -- and I am not at all convinced that there is more pleasure than suffering in life, so please don't mistake me as giving the usual utilitarian retort that the pleasure outweighs suffering -- we also value life as an end unto itself. — Moliere

By entirety of life, I mean, you have the unique ability to prevent suffering for an entire life. This valuing life as an end unto itself you mention as a reason, can stand in place of the "agenda" the parents have in mind when creating a child. In this case, life itself is the agenda, and the child is the bearer for this agenda. The child needs to be born in order for the agenda to be carried forward- that is life itself. Why does life itself need to be experienced by a person though? This idea coupled with the idea that no person needs anything, if they are not already born in the first place to care about it or be deprived of it, is my point. It is all about the parents' perceived loss of some future outcome that they want to see- again the agenda. There is no person deprived of this benefit (what I call agenda). There is no need for the need for an agenda (to the potential person who does not exist to care)

Just because most people are tolerant of suffering, does not mean that it should be perpetrated on behalf of a future person- that is to say, that it a new person should be exposed to it for X sake (in your case to experience life itself- but you can put ANYTHING in that agenda).

And also I really don't think I'm misrepresenting you at all in saying that your target isn't suffering as much as it is life itself. As you say -- procreation is the only instance when life as a whole can be considered. So your target is life, not suffering -- suffering, in any amount, is what makes life bad, for you, but your injunction is not "prevent suffering" as much as it is "prevent life, because any suffering at all is bad, and this is the only way to eliminate suffering".

Does that strike you as right or wrong, in terms of my depiction of your argument? — Moliere

Well, if life itself didn't have suffering, then that wouldn't be a target. What is it about life itself that needs to be carried out in light of the fact that no one needs anything if there is no one there to care or be deprived in the first place? That is my question to you? Isn't it all about the projection of the parent in any of these cases you could possibly present? Why does the child have to bear out this projection?

There are things, probably lots of things, you would not like forced on you as an adult.

Now it seems your using the excuse of the child's initial non existence to impose these on someone.

For example I was forced to go to church several times the week my entire childhood which was a grim joyless environment and read the bible and pray every day. As an adult I have never chosen to do anything like that. It is something I would never chose but my status as a child meant I was powerless.

You are using the "nonexistence" status of the unborn so as not to have to accept that you are imposing on them a soon as they come to exist and mitigate your actions even though you can well predict potential preferences.

It is not acceptable to rape someone when they are unconscious because of the impact when they become conscious. The initial non existence of a person does not justify what happens to them after they start to exist.

Even if someone is not an antinatalist they can accept that the child did not chose to be born or did not state a preference for this life or sign a contract with society. I would be happy if people just recognized that dynamic and its ethical ramifications.

I can think of a potential argument for having a child in the form of religion or supernatural/esoteric beliefs.

Someone might believe that after creating a child, the child will live for ever. This life is temporary but they will go on to an eternal heavenly afterlife so there life will over all be amazing.

This is a genuine hope some people claim to have. But it is a dangerous optimism with no evidence to support it (depending on how you analyse the evidence claims)

I think to have a child on this kind of worldview would require strong evidence and more evidence than has been presented.but still it would not justify a free for all of unregulated procreation.

I find it harder to understand why someone without these kind of beliefs would have child, some of these people believing in no innate purpose or meaning, no afterlife, no God, no freewill etc.

I think religion might encourage people to have children because it is based on a mixture of false hope and ignorance and that rationality and inquiry does not lead people to have lots of children if any.

Ultimately, they aren’t the reason why I was born, or why I was born in a world like this one — Michael Ossipoff

No they WERE the reason you were born in THIS world. Had they not decided to have birth you could have been born into a world of immortal robots. They're not the reason you're born but they're the reason you were born HERE. (I still don't really accept your premise that a person is the cause of his own birth or part of the cause but I'm rolling with it)

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. — Michael Ossipoff

Whoa whoa whoa there I'ma have to give you a speeding ticket. Why'd you turn Hindu so fast what the heck? What does one's moral actions in his current life story have to do with him reincarnating? You never said people reincarnate. In fact, according to your theory then what follows death is NOT reincarnation but the repetition of the exact same life like in Nietzsche's book thus spake zarathustra. Since you're the cause of your own life story then after death, you should cause the same life story again. You don't move on to another life story.

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. … — Michael Ossipoff

I might have misspoke there. What I meant was that
P1: if THIS world turned antinatalist it would reduce the chances of someone getting born here.
P2: there are worlds where no pain is possible
P3: pain is possible in this world
C: this world should turn antinatalist to reduce the number of people that have to experience pain

Your logic would still make an argument for antinatalism

So, I agree with anti-natalism in that sense. — Michael Ossipoff

Wait so you're an antinatalist now? I thought you were trying to argue AGAINST it

it's not avoidance of potential suffering lol. It's preventing others from experiencing suffering for no reason. If anything most of the antinatalists I've talked to so far are committed to enduring a life of starvation due to not having a workforce due to no one having kids. Many of them have even gotten vasectomies. Trust me antinatalists are not pussies. Now let me ask you a question Mr supernonpussy. What reason do you have for having children? Also do you intend to attack the philosophical position instead of its followers any time soon?

my view is: The only way birth can be moral is if the parent is committed to doing assisted suicide to his child if he asks and can't do it himself. Even if it's illegal. Also it is immoral for the parent to try to prevent his offspring from committing suicide if it's a level headed decision and must assist him/her with it. If you risk someone else's well-being in an attempt to improve your own and it doesn't work out, you owe that person to return them to their previous state. It's like if I used your computer without your permission and broke it I owe you an identical computer. I made an analogy with a cryochamber a few comments back that I think is my best so far

I am aware of that argument but it doesn't address mine at all. The antinatalist has no problem with the ACT of giving birth but it's consequences. It's like how the ACT of pulling your finger backwards is harmless but shooting someone is not.

It's like this: is it moral to bring a child into being just to torture them? After all, there existed no child beforehand to protect from suffering so I'm not really saving anyone from suffering am I?

The answer is obviously not because it's just like the gun example, the problem isn't the "giving birth" part it's the "they'll suffer if you do" part. Just like the problem isn't the "pull your finger back part" but the "they'll die" part

When antinatalists say "preventing suffering" they don't mean the suffering of a magical baby-ghost. They mean the suffering that WOULD occur if that baby is born. If there was a way to KNOW that a baby will be happy and love life forever if it's born then it's fine to give birth to it but that's unknowable and it's immoral to take such a risk when you're not the one that's going to be paying the price but your child. It's like how it's immoral for even the best juggler in the world to juggle babies over a fire. Sure he probably won't mess up, but the problem is if he DOES he can't pay compensation. If he chooses to juggle his own laptops for example, that's perfectly morally acceptable, because he'd only be harming himself if he messes up.

This is why my view is that the only way giving birth is moral is if the parent is willing to help his child with assisted suicide if he asks. The parent took a risk and if it doesn't work out then he has to ensure that his child has the least painful exit possible

it's similar to how driving laws prevent suffering from no one in particular but we still say they "prevent suffering". Benetar's assymmetry argument is concerned with examining the CONSEQUENCES of both choices.

If you give birth: Someone is harmed
Thus:
If you don't give birth: Someone is saved from harm

Even if you don't accept this asymmetry (which I'll be honest I don't myself but keep citing it because I like role-playing as an antinatalist) it's still

Give birth: bad, good
Don't give birth: neutral neutral

So what right do you have to take a risk with someone else's life like that? Destroying someone's house while they're asleep and saying "There was no one to be harmed by what I was doing (because they were asleep at the moment) so what I did doesn't harm anyone" and then refusing to fix what you broke on the basis that they never said no to you. Of course there IS a chance that person actually likes his house nearly destroyed and so wouldn't ask you to fix what you broke but you have to still be willing to fix what you broke if he asks. On the other hand, you could have not taken that risk of him disliking or liking the house to begin with and not destoryed it (Neutral, Neutral)

This is why the only way birth can be moral is if you are willing to "fix what you broke". If you're not, don't give birth

The only way birth can be moral is if the parent is committed to doing assisted suicide to his child if he asks and can't do it himself. Even if it's illegal. Also it is immoral for the parent to try to prevent his offspring from committing suicide if it's a level headed decision and must assist him/her with it. — khaled

Thanks for answering. That's an interesting view at least. ;-)

That wouldn't come up very often (a kid going to their parent with a suicide request), but I suppose that doesn't matter.

If you risk someone else's well-being in an attempt to improve your own and it doesn't work out, you owe that person to return them to their previous state. — khaled

Re this, of course no one was in a previous state of not being alive.

The answer is obviously not because it's just like the gun example, the problem isn't the "giving birth" part it's the "they'll suffer if you do" part. Just like the problem isn't the "pull your finger back part" but the "they'll die" part — khaled

To use an amusing earlier example, though, if pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger meant that the person who was "shot" would have to do their laundry, should it be a crime to shoot someone?

I’m attacking the position with an experimental approach because (honestly) I suspect this sort of view is a pathology of the logos. Reason alone never seems to untangle it for the afflicted.

Here though, let me reiterate something important. There is an absolutely crucial distinction between the certainty that I should not have children and the certainty that nobody should. The former is fine and vasectomy or w/e makes sense. The latter is exactly the type of narcissism that serves as a precursor to the worst kinds of atrocity.

The moral principle of preventing suffering is a byproduct of humanity’s life affirming orientation across an enormous span of time. It exists in a context. It is not a standalone axiom of the universe. To turn it against life itself is mere rhetorical sleight of hand and this is plainly obvious to most of us.

Well, if life itself didn't have suffering, then that wouldn't be a target. What is it about life itself that needs to be carried out in light of the fact that no one needs anything if there is no one there to care or be deprived in the first place? That is my question to you? Isn't it all about the projection of the parent in any of these cases you could possibly present? Why does the child have to bear out this projection? — schopenhauer1

There is nothing about life itself that needs to be carried out, because needs only happen within life -- just like suffering only happens in life. Valuing life isn't an ends-to-means kind of care, so it doesn't make sense that the child is "saddled" with the desires of some parent just by the mere fact that they are born.

Not to mention that this is kind of far astray from suffering and has more to do with valuing autonomy and individuality.

By entirety of life, I mean, you have the unique ability to prevent suffering for an entire life. — schopenhauer1

For me, then, this is reverts back to thinking of un-real persons as receiving some kind of benefit, which is just absurd. I'd say that valueing life isn't the sort of value that one is doing for the sake of which -- hence why it seems strange to me to say it's an agenda. The child is not a means to an end.

This valuing life as an end unto itself you mention as a reason, can stand in place of the "agenda" the parents have in mind when creating a child. In this case, life itself is the agenda, and the child is the bearer for this agenda. The child needs to be born in order for the agenda to be carried forward- that is life itself. Why does life itself need to be experienced by a person though?

Why does the suffering of a person matter? Why should autonomy figure in our moral reasoning?

Of course there is no why. All reasoning comes to an end, including moral reasoning -- and the sorts of appeals being made here are not being made for some other reason. Suffering is bad, life is good, autonomy should be respected. These aren't values of the ends-means variety, but are the values by which we reason about how to act. They are a kind of terminus to moral or ethical reasoning.

The big difference here is not an answer to these questions, but the degree of attachment you happen to feel to these sorts of things. You don't feel attachment to life, or at least not enough to balance out your attachment to the badness of suffering -- suffering is so bad, and a necessary part of life, that life does not have value for you to the degree it has for others.

But is there really an answer you can provide to the answer of "why?" other than that suffering is really, really bad?

It doesn't address your argument at all because @schopenhauer1 is making a different argument from you. :D

Click on my highlighted name and you should be able to read my argument to you:

— Moliere

There are things, probably lots of things, you would not like forced on you as an adult.

Now it seems your using the excuse of the child's initial non existence to impose these on someone. — Andrew4Handel

Actually all I'm doing is stressing a very technical ontological point. You're not actually doing anything to anyone, consensually or not, prior to their existence, because there is no one to do anything to.

For example I was forced to go to church several times the week my entire childhood which was a grim joyless environment and read the bible and pray every day. As an adult I have never chosen to do anything like that. It is something I would never chose but my status as a child meant I was powerless. — Andrew4Handel

What I think is worth looking at here is why that experience was presumably so traumatic for you that it would lead you to thinking that if other people would have to go through it, it's better if they simply don't exist at all.

And something more specifically that's worth looking at there is this: some people can get something of value out of any experience--they can see positives in any experience, they can parse the experience differently while they're in it so that they get something of value out of it--perhaps even by mentally subverting it, focusing attention on things that one enjoys, seeing the humor in it, etc, they can treat every situation as one where something is learned and experience is gained, where those are seen as positives in and of themselves, and so on.

So in your case, what made the difference between being able to see the positive sides of having to go to church, etc. and seeing it as instead so traumatic that you'd recommend no one ever have kids because of the possibility that some other kid will have to do something like go to church?

It is not acceptable to rape someone when they are unconscious because of the impact when they become conscious. — Andrew4Handel

Aside from the fact that you're not seeing the distinction between whether a person exists or not (you're thinking of it simply as a question of whether someone is conscious--that's not the issue, the issue is that you can't do anything, pro or con, to a nonexistent), even if that were a good analogy, I don't have anything resembling conventional views on stuff like that, but I don't want to get into details on anything too controversial, because then that's all that anyone can ever focus on. (I've had that situation on message boards before.)

Even if someone is not an antinatalist they can accept that the child did not chose to be born — Andrew4Handel

Again, this is a category error, because there's not something to make a choice. It's not the case that you're doing something nonconsensually to anything.

There is nothing about life itself that needs to be carried out, because needs only happen within life -- just like suffering only happens in life. Valuing life isn't an ends-to-means kind of care, so it doesn't make sense that the child is "saddled" with the desires of some parent just by the mere fact that they are born. — Moliere

This doesn't make sense to me. Suffering and needs happen within life. Do not "saddle" a child with the burdens of life by procreating them into existence is the argument. As far as the parents' desires- what I meant was that if a child does note experience whatever X agenda (pleasure, experience for its own sake, etc.) that is no loss for the potential child, only for the parent who is projecting what the child is missing. Other than that possible confusion, I don't understand your claim here.

Not to mention that this is kind of far astray from suffering and has more to do with valuing autonomy and individuality. — Moliere

Well, I have mentioned that it is not just preventing suffering, there is a component that you are also not creating suffering on behalf of someone else so the child can live out X agenda (pleasure, fulfill a role in a family, etc). Again, the kicker here that you might not take into consideration is that no actual child is deprived of whatever X agenda that they might miss that the parent had hoped for the child.

For me, then, this is reverts back to thinking of un-real persons as receiving some kind of benefit, which is just absurd. I'd say that valueing life isn't the sort of value that one is doing for the sake of which -- hence why it seems strange to me to say it's an agenda. The child is not a means to an end. — Moliere

I certainly hope the child isn't a means to an ends, but unfortunately, to the procreational parents of the child, that is what it becomes before its birth. The placeholder of that potential child is the reasons it should be procreated in the first place (to experience life, to create a family, etc.). It becomes the bearer of whatever agenda reasoning the parent had in mind for why the child was to be born, at the cost of preventing a person who will suffer.

Why does the suffering of a person matter? Why should autonomy figure in our moral reasoning?

Of course there is no why. All reasoning comes to an end, including moral reasoning -- and the sorts of appeals being made here are not being made for some other reason. Suffering is bad, life is good, autonomy should be respected. These aren't values of the ends-means variety, but are the values by which we reason about how to act. They are a kind of terminus to moral or ethical reasoning.

The big difference here is not an answer to these questions, but the degree of attachment you happen to feel to these sorts of things. You don't feel attachment to life, or at least not enough to balance out your attachment to the badness of suffering -- suffering is so bad, and a necessary part of life, that life does not have value for you to the degree it has for others.

But is there really an answer you can provide to the answer of "why?" other than that suffering is really, really bad? — Moliere

Yes, as I stated to Terrapin, at the end of the day, these kind of axiologies are based on various ways we feel about the values they are based on. The value of preventing ALL future suffering at the cost of nothing FOR NO PARTICULAR PERSON, and the value of not creating suffering on the behest of someone else so that they can carry out someone else's vision of the agenda of what is valuable (pleasure, experiencing life, enculutraing, overcoming adversity, etc.) is what matters in this axiology. What I think gives strength to this argument over all others is the fact that there is NO COST. There is NO COST because no actual person is deprived of goods, but all the benefit of not being harmed would be the case. Sure, this means that all other aspects of experiencing life are considered not as important, but what does it matter to a person not born in the first place?

Also, the lesser but still notable value (that you pointed out) that the child isn't being used as a bearer of the parental agenda of values that they think should take place for that new individual is also important here.

Lastly, the collateral damage of undo suffering that happens to some degree (sometimes to the extremes) is always something to consider. But this is an imperfect argument because based on statistical weights of future outcomes more than any hardcoded axiological value to base it on.

but what does it matter to a person not born in the first place? — schopenhauer1

Exactly! :D It does not matter until the child is born. Mattering can only happen if there is a someone. There is a cost associated with your axiology -- the cost is life. And people do, in fact, value life. For yourself this seems like no cost because life is not worth much. But for most that is just not so.

Do not "saddle" a child with the burdens of life by procreating them into existence is the argument. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, but why? This connects to what I was saying later about how people value life -- not for some end or other, but unto itself. There isn't an agenda, it's just something considered vauable -- that has currency. So it's not about a deprivation or a benefit to some non-entity. Valuing life isn't really about what we are doing to non-entities. The consideration isn't about saddling or burdening someone else with the horrrors of life.

Life itself is just valuable, so procreation is as a relative good. That's the whole of it. Just like suffering has no real why behind it, but is generally seen as something that is worthwhile to avoid, prevent, or lessen.

Just a quick side-note -- valuing life unto itself differs from thinking that we should experience life, too. We do, after all, keep people in a vegetative state because we value life, even though they do not have experience -- certainly with some hopes that they'll come back to us, but this is just to note that the experiential angle isn't exactly what I'm getting at by saying people value life.

Exactly! :D It does not matter until the child is born. Mattering can only happen if there is a someone. There is a cost associated with your axiology -- the cost is life. And people do, in fact, value life. For yourself this seems like no cost because life is not worth much. But for most that is just not so. — Moliere

Well, part of the argument is where benefits of life (like I guess, life itself and pleasure) do not matter unless there is someone there to be deprived. However it is an absolute always good to prevent harm even if no actual person existed for this benefit That is the asymmetry part of the argument. Pleasure is only good for those who exist. Someone being prevented from harm when they otherwise did not need to be harmed is always good, period (thus necessary harms of adversity to get stronger are moot points pre-birth).

There isn't an agenda, it's just something considered vauable -- that has currency. So it's not about a deprivation or a benefit to some non-entity. Valuing life isn't really about what we are doing to non-entities. The consideration isn't about saddling or burdening someone else with the horrrors of life. — Moliere

Yes there certainly is an agenda- the agenda of being born to experience life. That is what the parent is projecting on behalf of another person, despite the fact that existence has non-trivial harms. Guess what though, being not born is not a harm, it is not a bad. Nothing is lost by not being born for any particular person. Certainly, suffering is prevented though which is always good.

Life itself is just valuable, so procreation is as a relative good. That's the whole of it. Just like suffering has no real why behind it, but is generally seen as something that is worthwhile to avoid, prevent, or lessen. — Moliere

I see no need to put life with harms above preventing harm. The only person who loses out is the sadness of the parent for not fulfilling their projected value of life for its own sake.

Just a quick side-note -- valuing life unto itself differs from thinking that we should experience life, too. We do, after all, keep people in a vegetative state because we value life, even though they do not have experience -- certainly with some hopes that they'll come back to us, but this is just to note that the experiential angle isn't exactly what I'm getting at by saying people value life. — Moliere

Then the same question remains. Why is life considered more important than preventing harm, when no actual person is losing out only the parent's sadness of not fuliflling projected value of life.

That is the asymmetry part of the argument. — schopenhauer1

I suppose I'd just say this asymmetry is false, then. Or, at least, I do not believe in the asymmetry between these. Preventing harm is only important if someone is there for harm to be prevented. And, even then, preventing harm is also a relative good -- causing harm can be the right thing to do, in certain circumstances. This is because all ethical claims rely upon there being ethical agents; there is no absolute or ultimate ethical rule which must be satisfied, come what may, even if we do not exist. Ethics are a human concern, and so eliminating the agent from which they spring sort of undercuts the very basis of any ethical claim.

Do not "saddle" a child with the burdens of life by procreating them into existence is the argument. — schopenhauer1

I know you're not trying to do this, but it's worth noting how difficult it is to state something like you want to state here without suggesting the idea of doing something to someone who doesn't exist yet.

if a child does note experience whatever X agenda (pleasure, experience for its own sake, etc.) that is no loss for the potential child, — schopenhauer1

Nothing can be any loss or gain or anything to a "potential child."

What I think gives strength to this argument over all others is the fact that there is NO COST. There is NO COST because no actual person is deprived of goods, — schopenhauer1

If Jim and Janis want to have a child but do not because of social pressures (maybe even a law) against it, doesn't that create suffering for them?