not everything affects everyone, so that's false, — Bartricks

Really? Are you quite sure of that? Degree is not specified. Why don't you make explicit whatever degree you mean.

and not everything that affects others affects them without their consent, so that's false too. — Bartricks

And I did not say it did, so read a little more closely.

But anyway, the claim is that if an act affects someone else in a significant way then it is default wrong if the affected person has not consented to be affected in that way. — Bartricks

I saw this above. What exactly do you mean by "default wrong"? Pretty clearly you must have a special twist on it, or at least some clarifying to do. By implication, it is not possible to not wrong a person by some act, if they have not given a prior consent or authorization. Or, same thing, everything that might "effect" any person "in a significant way" is wrong, absent prior consent. And that cannot be right.

But you allow countervailing "rightness" to balance and presumably cancel the wrong. But isn't that rightness also done without consent? So it's both wrong and not wrong, or wrong and right? You've created a muddle for yourself. Likely you can salvage your argument with suitable qualifications: give it a try.

And since when do barristers play bar tricks? — Bartricks

Rhetoric, hyperbole, histrionics, playing to the emotions of the jury, defending a client they may believe or even know to be guilty? That's not cheap and tricky behavior at the bar?

As said before, this thread is about whether procreation is default wrong due to blah did blah consent (can't be bothered to keep writing it). It is not about Kant. — Bartricks

Yeah, I know. The blah blah blah is due to the lack of consent from the unborn person, and such is quite frightful to Kantian deontology because it de-values his intrinsic humanity. I am a Kantian deontologist, which presupposes I understand Kantian moral philosophy, which in turn is necessarily predicated on understanding his definitions, one of which is: “....rational beings, on the contrary, are called persons..”

An unborn person, in your usage, is not yet, and may never be, a rational being, and the entire Kantian deontological thesis is predicated on “...Rational beings in possession of a will...”.

Therefore, to a Kantian deontology view, procreation is not anathema, nor is it immoral, nor does it infringe on the intrinsic value of an person, because the unborn isn’t a person because it isn’t a rational being.

You shoulda referenced Bentham instead of Kant; you’d have been better off. Or even Ross, for that matter.

Enjoy your knife fight; you’re slashing at 65,000 ton shadows. Mothballed as it may be.

defending a client they may believe or even know to be guilty? — Janus

Not on topic, but surely you know better than this, yes?

What are you referring to? Are you saying barristers don't do that? Or are you saying they should defend someone they know to be guilty?

No. I am supposing you know perfectly well that is their job, and not just for their client's sake, but for the sake of us all. Star chamber mean anything to you? Or more current, Guantanamo? Any failure of the right application of justice is very bad for everyone. But surely you know this perfectly well, yes?

I know the law is the law, but I also know the law is an ass, sometimes at least, and that the system does not always render justice. We are speaking here in the context of Kantian ethics. If a barrister knows or even simply believes that her client is guilty then to defend them would be, implicitly if not explicitly, to lie, and lying is always morally wrong according to Kant. Morality and the law are not always the same; but I have no doubt you already know that.

If a barrister knows or even simply believes that her client is guilty then to defend them would be, implicitly if not explicitly, to lie, and lying is always morally wrong according to Kant. — Janus

*sigh* By barrister, I infer you're English. In America - which gets most of its law from English law - a lawyer cannot permit his client to lie, nor can lie him- or herself. That's the rules, and big trouble here for any who break them. Besides, at law, the jury decides guilt, and prior to a consideration of evidence, the defendant is presumed innocent. For most of us, this is all at a distance. In practice, and in discussions like this, it's closer and requires more than just knee-jerk thinking. Think Magna Carta. But with your 8K+ posts, I'm thinking you're just fooling around and know all this even better than I.

I'm not saying that a lawyer would necessarily tell any outright lies in defending their clients, but then who knows what they might get up to in their pursuit of winning cases at any cost?

So, if they don't tell any outright lies or permit their clients to do so they have done nothing wrong from a legal point of view, but if they know the client is guilty, and they allow the client to plead innocence then that would already amount to allowing the client to tell a lie, would it not?

Even if they merely believe, as opposed to know, the client is guilty and yet defend him anyway would that not constitute a lie, since to defend someone is, by implication, to profess their innocence? How could doing that be understood to be serving justice?

And no, I mean what I say; I am not "fooling around". And I'm Australian, not English (thank God!).

And no, I mean what I say; I am not "fooling around". — Janus

Alas, then, for you know a lot less than I give you credit for.

The role of courts and attorneys and law itself is to protect society in both broad and narrow senses. To do that they have rules and understandings of those rules and their purposes and functions. Here, think of it this way: a man takes a knife and slashes you open. Clearly a serious crime by any standard, unless he's a surgeon performing surgery. For him, special rules. Why special rules for surgeons? Because it makes the world a better place for all. Same for the law and those who pursue it as a profession.

Nor would any of this counter any Kantian categorical imperative.

I know very well what "the role of courts and attorneys and law itself is" and, broadly, what their rules and modes of operation are.

It's one thing to say "alas, then, for you know a lot less than I give you credit for.", do you have anything else to say in the way of argument against anything I have said? Sure, none of what you said about protection of society, or about rules and understandings, or about serious crimes or about the justice system "making the world a better place for all" "counter any Kantian categorical imperatives". But then so what?

Are you denying that some lawyers defend those they believe or even know not to be innocent? Do you deny that to do so is morally, as opposed to legally, wrong from a Kantian perspective, because it constitutes telling a lie? Do you, in general, deny a distinction between what is legally wrong and what is morally wrong? If you say there is no such distinction, then I will have to return the compliment and say that alas, you know much less than I gave you credit for.

( Was there any need for you to indulge in insult, rather than argument, in the first place)?

I just picked my nose. How on earth did that affect everyone? I just made my partner a cup of coffee after asking if she wanted one - how on earth did that affect another person without their consent? So your claim that every act affects everyone without their consent is patently obviously false.

I mean by 'default wrong' 'default wrong'. I do not know of another way to say the same thing more clearly. Defeasibly wrong? That seems less clear, but it means the same.

Are you denying that some lawyers defend those they believe or even know to be innocent? Do you deny that to do so is morally, as opposed to legally, wrong from a Kantian perspective, because it constitutes telling a lie? Do you, in general, deny a distinction between what is legally wrong and what is morally wrong? If you say there is no such distinction, then I will have to return the compliment and say that alas, you know much less than I gave you credit for. — Janus

What insult? I tried to credit you with knowledge, which you finally admitted you have, along with almost every other educated western adult on earth. The insult, if there was one, was in your being disingenuous.

You have asked several questions. I'll give 'em a try.
Are you denying that some lawyers defend those they believe or even know to be innocent?
I think you mean "guilty. And yes. They're supposed to. And if the lawyer is assigned the case, he has to. Not only does he have to, but he is obliged to do the best job he can. All that to insure, as much as possible, that the state does a proper job of prosecution. Far as I know, not this way in Russia or China, or likely the other totalitarian states. Probably not in Cuba or Venezuela. And so on.

Do you deny that to do so is morally, as opposed to legally, wrong from a Kantian perspective, because it constitutes telling a lie?
The moral obligation is to do one's duty. In the case of a lawyer, that duty may not be intuitively obvious, though it be obvious to reason. And Kant's idea of duty, as expressed through his categorical imperative, is that you have to figure your CI out for your own circumstance. If you arrive at conflicting CIs then you choose the best one and the other(s) fall away. The duty of a lawyer with respect to his client is to do the best he can so that justice is served. He does not get to lie or to front a lie. He doesn't get to allow his client to lie under oath, for example. These latter considerations, though, are what you claim to know perfectly well, so I ought not revisit them. It's the question of compliance with what you understand of Kant. And that I think is - seems to be at the moment - inadequate for the argument.

Do you, in general, deny a distinction between what is legally wrong and what is morally wrong? No, they're different things under different rules.

And you can return the favor free. I find it generally true that I know less than I think I know, and sometimes get more credit than I deserve.

What insult? I tried to credit you with knowledge, which you finally admitted you have, along with almost every other educated western adult on earth. The insult, if there was one, was in your being disingenuous. — tim wood

But I had not denied having the common knowledge that you laid out there. The issue is over how we judge the general moral rectitude of the courts and the law, as they are, not in principle but in practice. So I was not being "disingenuous".

The moral obligation is to do one's duty. In the case of a lawyer, that duty may not be intuitively obvious, though it be obvious to reason. — tim wood

The moral obligation is to do one's moral duty, which may conflict with one's legal duty, since there is, as you have acknowledged, a distinction between moral and legal duties and the two may certainly conflict sometimes.

Yes. This is just the same old anti-natalist argument as we've seen in five other threads recently. Those have all been combined by the moderators into one thread, which is still active. This discussion belongs there. — T Clark

I agree.

You're presenting an argument that you've already presented elsewhere, and which has been refuted.

If someone takes £20 from someone else's wallet without asking, then that's wrong because they should have obtained consent.

If someone has sex with a three year-old, then that's wrong, not because they should have obtained consent, given that they can't have possibly done so, but because it is exploiting the child for sexual gratification, and the effects of child sexual abuse can include depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, propensity to further victimization in adulthood, and physical injury to the child, among other problems. An adult who engages in sexual activity with a child is performing a criminal and immoral act which is not considered normal or socially acceptable behavior.

And procreating an embryo, foetus, baby, or child, is simply not wrong, generally speaking. But if it was, it wouldn't be because consent had not been obtained. That makes no sense. It can't possibly have been obtained. You couldn't tell me that I should have gotten consent first, like in all other such situations.

Your argument is fallacious, as it commits a category error. It's no different in form than arguing that we shouldn't mow the lawn without first having obtained consent from the grass.

Your argument is dead. Let it rest in peace.

You seem to be again back to abandoning your argument as "Kantian", and simply focusing on the consent.

Other posters have outlined the problems in principle that you need to overcome, but you seem genuinely flustered by the people here not agreeing to your premise, which you have finally been kind enough to reveal that "lack of consent is wrong by default".

I've already mentioned that the, pretty big example in my view, that the basic nature of government is based on not getting everyone's consent of people affected by government actions, which are very, very significant. There are various theories that society in general or governments in particular can propose to prop-up "consent of the governed" ... but people don't have to consent to those theories. I.e. the government didn't ask my consent to tax me and threaten me with jail if I don't comply, and if the government or anyone else offers a rational justification that my consent is implied, well I didn't consent to have a significant and painful challenge to my belief system thrown at me.

Now, I think most would agree here that there can be just governments and unjust governments, but even concerning only just governments, an argument defending a just government can't possibly be based on the consent or everyone that government significantly affects. Not only a single person not consenting then makes the government "default wrong", but many can't consent, in particular unborn children. Now, I of course realize your advocating children not be born, but insofar as it's likely children will continue to be born anyway (for at least a time) how are the significant actions government takes in the meantime possibly justifiable if the (unfortunate as these births may be from the perspective of anti-natalism) unborn children aren't obtained.

I use the government as an example because anti-natalists are usually not for actively destroying society as it is now, but propose we get along, which includes having these governments around, and just let society peter out through not conceiving and giving birth. Insofar as this is the case, that your anti-natalist proposal is not by extension advocating throwing in the towel on any social organization at all mean-time, an idea of justice and good governance is required, which cannot be predicated on the consent of everyone, it just doesn't work as shown above. So, how do you deal with government actions that significantly affect people that do not consent, not only people alive today but the unborn?

To be perfectly clear, the lack of consent of the unborn in your proposal is relevant to it being right not to conceive them and wrong to conceive them, so it seems to follow that the lack of consent of the unborn (whether born to people that are acting wrongly and birthing new people or then to anti-natalists that made a contraceptive mistake) likewise cannot be obtained for government action today and so no government action (that significantly affects future people) is justifiable.

This is one hurdle, and I use government as the example because your idea that you can live peacefully and never significantly affect people without their consent is not because that's not what you do, but because those actions of yours are performed on your behalf through the agency of government you support through your quotidian arrangement, out of the way as it maybe, and participation in society. You are living in a dream world if you think this is not the case, and your peaceful tea drinking is the limit to your affect on others.

But there are other hurdles as well. For instance, it's generally recognized that surgeons should have the consent of their patients ... unless they can't get that consent, the default is not "this operation is a significant affect on this person and therefore wrong without consent" but the presumption is to save people's lives even if they are unable to consent, such as due to being unconscious, because individual life has value. Likewise, even when consent is possible it is not in itself sufficient to close the debate. Fairly young children can make informed consent, but the government does not respect the moral autonomy of children, but places it with the parents and even then can overrule the consent of the parents if there is sufficient cause to (i.e. that the parents are not acting in the interests of their children, as we usually suppose, and that interest cannot be derived from consent, as we've already decided that's irrelevant for this issue to even arise, but rather that the presumption that life has value; if we did not both A. presume a child's life has value and B. the child's consent to action required to protect that value is irrelevant, then there is no basis to intervene to protect children from harm, nor basis to intervene to protect children from self-harm that they do not consent to, and the argument simply repeats when we want to remove the consent society has displaced from the child to the parent).

Not only is the above lack of relevance of child consent in lot's of things a major cliff you'll need to scale (as other posters have already pointed out), since if we don't seek the consent of children to protect those children from harm on the presumption of their right to live then why is consent suddenly relevant before they are even alive for us to ignore their ability to consent until we decide otherwise? But it doesn't end there.

First responders and surgeons not only save the lives of the unconscious, but also the failed suicides, so if "well, we presume injured people would consent to live ... but we presume the unborn don't want to live!" is even an argument, how do you deal with saving the lives of failed suicides where there's strong evidence that there is no consent for such significant life saving measures.

Now, you can advocate for doctors not saving unconscious failed suicides, that the presumption that unconscious people want to be saved is not valid and therefore the presumption the unborn want to be born is not valid on similar grounds, that all actions significantly affecting children require their consent (i.e. feeding a baby requires consent as it significantly affects the baby to be fed or not), that no government action is justifiable if one person significantly affected does not consent to it including the unborn, and you'll still have the problems of principle to deal with that other posters have brought up.

My purpose here is to point out the enormous nature of the task you have set yourself; consent, as practiced today in society, is not straightforward at all like a "default wrong" that you suggest -- we easily cast it aside when more important things are at play (from arresting criminal suspects without their consent, to coercing everyone to pay taxes regardless of consent), when we don't find the consent credible (children and mentally ill), or consent is not available (unconscious or yet to be born) -- so you'll need to show us why when society ignores consent it maybe "default wrong" but actually right for other reasons that don't simultaneously undermine anti-natalism (the "right wrongs" that has been described to you), or then accept what seem like the obvious implications of your position which is no "significant actions" are ever justified including to do nothing and die (as loved ones are significantly affected by you thirsting to death too); which can be a coherent anti-natalist position as far as it goes (if we shouldn't be alive, we are perhaps in an impossible moral bind and nothing at all can be justified, except through careful reasoning that avoids the pitfalls of self-refuting nihilism, somehow we can still know that the only action that "for sure" is not justifiable amongst all the equally not justifiable actions, more wrong among only wrong actions, is to have more children).

You're confusing, I think, the act with the purpose of the act. — tim wood

:-\ :-/

It's an ontological statement, about what (or rather who, in this case) exists at time Tx.

You can't perform an act on a nonexistent at time Tx.

I have not incorrectly used the term 'Kantian' in referring to the argument I am focusing on in that way. — Bartricks

You have. It's quite annoying to see you butcher Kantianism in order to make it fit your preconceived notion. But since you blithely refuse to even consider any other view, there is no point in continuing.

If you cannot affect someone by creating them, kindly explain how you can affect someone by destroying them - and explain in a way that will not allow me to say the same about creating someone or that will not just involve making some arbitrary stipulation that has no support from reason. — Bartricks

Making people that exist no longer exist affects those people, since they loose everything.

As you think you like logic, here's an argument and you tell me which premise you dispute, or the first premise you dispute if you dispute more than one of them. — Bartricks

If by "default wrong" you mean that exceptions have to be justified, like in the cases of self defense or implied consent, I don't have a problem with that argument. I wouldn't personally structure it that way, but it's fine for the purposes of argument.

So being affected in a significant way without consent — Janus

......is “default wrong”: everything from birthday presents to battlefield dressings to....EGAD!!! Sending us to school without seeking our permission. No wonder I hated my parents.

It’s all so clear to me now.

Like I say, you're off topic. My argument is - for the umpteenth time - 'Kantian'. It is distinct from "Kant's ethics" even though a believer in Kant's ethics is, of course, a Kantian.
But anyway, those who are fundamentally uninterested in philosophical discussions for fear that they may discover something is true that they don't want to be prefer, in my experience, verbal quibbles.
I am not going to reply to you any more until you address the actual argument rather than the label I have applied to it.

No, I mean by default wrong what I said I mean. Now address the argument not the label I have attached to it. The label is correct and all you're doing by disputing that is a) not focussing on the issue at hand and b) revealing your ignorance.
Engage the argument or go away and start your own thread in which you use whatever labels you want to attach to things.

'Default wrong' doesn't mean always and everywhere wrong. Sheesh, are you doing this on purpose?

It is often perfectly justified to do something to someone that affects them significantly without their consent. Often - though not invariably - it is justified to do something to someone without their consent if doing so is the only way to prevent them from coming to a significant harm, for instance. That's why it is morally justified to force kids to go to school. But a) it is regrettable that we have to do this and b) it is not justified to create a situation in which this has to be done. That a large portion of our lives will have to be lived under the paternalistic dictactorship of our parents and state authorities is part of what makes forcing someone into this existence such a significant thing to have done to them.

:lol:

Default wrong. Like guilty until proven innocent? You murdered her by default, but we'll await the verdict.

That a large portion of our lives will have to be lived under the paternalistic dictactorship of our parents and state authorities is part of what makes forcing someone into this existence such a significant thing to have done to them. — Bartricks

This has surely got to be one of the worst kinds of ethical reasoning. Reasoning based off of purely imaginary and impossible (or practically impossible) alternatives. Like, yeah, parents and teachers are so bad, because ideally little children should be free to look after and educate themselves.

The argument is Kantian and it isn't my fault you don't know what that word means. This thread is not about a label, it is about an argument. The label is correct, but I am not debating it further here - start your own thread about Kantianism and what it has to involve if you want. But this thread was started by me - me, not you - to discuss a particular 'argument', not a 'label'. Okay?!

As for what you say about governments and surgeons - which premise are you trying to challenge with these examples? Presumably this one:

1. It is default wrong to perform an act if doing it will significantly affect another person without their prior consent.

Yes? Well, a) how does it challenge that premise given that the premise does not say that it is always and everywhere wrong? You need to show that it is not even default wrong, not just that there are a whole range of scenarios in which it is overall justified - for by definition, that is consistent with premise 1.

Of course surgeons are often going to be justified in performing operations without a person's consent. But a) it is regrettable that they have to do without it (if, for instance, a surgeon performed an operation without getting the consent of someone who was perfectly capable of giving it, then we'd all recognise that what the surgeon did was seriously wrong; and when consent is impossible its absence is still bad, it just doesn't operate to make the act overall wrong because there are countervailing moral positives that make it overall right.

b) in the case of governments you can't seriously be maintaining that consent is irrelevant to their legitimacy? I mean blimey, there's a vast, vast literature on what it takes for governments to be justified in their activities and a great, great deal of it focusses on the issue of consent. So the fact that most citizens in a community have not, in fact, given explicit consent to be governed is an age old problem - now, I am not saying that some kind of extreme anarchist position is right, I am just pointing out that it speaks to the overwhelming plausibility of premise 1 that virtually every political philosopher there has ever been recognises that there is an issue here that needs to be thought about, not just dismissed.

What's wrong with the reasoning?

And you're attacking a straw man. I am not arguing against educating children. Perhaps if you'd been made to undergo more education you'd have realized that.