Existence for the already-born is a tricky business. We are used creatures. Our self-reflective capacities are used by our own human instincts to shit, eat, get bored, find a more comfortable setting, and seek pleasure. We are used by social institutions because social institutions are designed to find a way to take those instincts and self-reflective capacities and manipulate them to produce and consume for the benefit of keeping society going (i.e. labor, consumption, trade, maintenance of personal and industrial commodities and goods, education, family, entertainment purveyors, etc.). We are often used by family and relatives. We are often used by our employers in various ways to get the most work- causing stress. We are de facto forced into these social institutions, knowing that as social creatures, such that being a hermit in the woods, a homeless person in the streets, or a monk in a commune are most likely not viable (are sub-optimal) choices, so the de facto social milieu of the socio-economic normative reality is set. We are used in all sorts of ways. We are complicit, as in turn, we tend to use others and these institutions as well for our needs and wants. Then, on top of this using, there is collateral damage. There are physical and mental illnesses, disasters, accidents, miscalculations, bad decision-making, and all sorts of things that make even the bad "regular" outcome of being used and manipulated into an even worse endeavor. — schopenhauer1
You can claim that this "using" is collaboration or "mutually beneficial relationships" but at the end of the day, they are de facto forced realities that we accept as necessary. Some (apparently you) go as far as giving some quasi-spiritual significance to these supposed "mutually beneficial relationships". I think this is simply turning a blind eye to what is really going on. The first (and most important) political decision was made for you, that was being born in the first place. Someone else thought you should go through life and be a part of this using process (not their perspective to use someone, but their unintended and unreflective action nonetheless). They had some reason (some X agenda) that this should be so if they weren't just outright negligent (accidental birth). Their decision majorly affecting another person, who must deal with it now. — schopenhauer1
Now that we are alive, "forced" into dealing with the situation thereof, what do we do? One can commit suicide. That is usually a sub-optimal choice for most. We can keep going through the motions- that is an inevitable choice (that is to say, survival through work, consumption, and trade through the normative socio-economic channels that the current situation provides). One could drink the Kool-Aid and accept the givens and then even "praise them" like so many self-help books try to promote. In this "acceptance" view (which I deem to be promoted most by social institutions), one accepts the reality of what the situation is more-or-less (minor political tweaks not withstanding on whatever minor political spectrum you are on), and then move forward as a happy warrior. Thus making friends, climbing the mountain of one's own self-actualization, and abiding the day in the normative socio-economic setting is the about as good as it gets. I say rebellion is the best stance though. Always realize that one was placed here originally. Always remember that one is being used and is using. Now, I agree that community is part of humanity, and thus communally, I think it can be cathartic to rebel together. — schopenhauer1
So antinatalism is not JUST about preventing harm (negative ethics), but can be a "positive" ethics in rallying against our being used. No, we cannot prevent "existence" itself, but we can recognize what is going on as a community and perhaps with this "rebellious stance" and understanding, we can be kinder and more understanding of each other and our situations. Schopenhauer thought the best stance was recognizing each other as "fellow-sufferers". We are in the same boat- and it isn't a collaboration panacea of bliss. It is rather being used by all sorts of factors and enduring and dealing with life. We can communally understand this and rebel. We can recognize what is going on and prevent others from dealing with as well. — schopenhauer1
This is victim mentality, or at least a form of ‘learned helplessness’. You’re simply unaware of your capacity for action, and unwilling to explore it when it presents itself. — Possibility
These are not ‘forces’ beyond our control. We are ‘complicit’ because these are social concepts that we have formed in our own minds, in the same way that people conceptualised ‘gods’ from interactions with their environment when they failed to detect control. Here’s an article about ‘learned helplessness’ theory you might find interesting. — Possibility
And all of this comes back to the self-contradictory, impractical negative ethics that says contributing to ‘harm’ is not an option. It is ONLY this flawed ethical perspective that positions us as ‘used creatures’. This can be changed, so why do you cling to it? What are you afraid of? — Possibility
I recognise that we cannot choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we respond. That we DO respond is important - whether we refer to it as ‘rebellion’ or as ‘collaboration’ depends on our awareness of how everything interacts and relates. To do anything effectively, we should begin by maximising our awareness of the current situation and accept it as real - regardless of whether we want it that way. From there, we can be in the best position to effect real and lasting change, because every action is then perceived as an INTERaction, rather than a battle against the ‘forces’ of the universe or society. There is a world of difference between accepting a situation as how it IS and how it should STAY. For me, Rosa Parks’ historical stance on the bus is a perfect example of awareness, connection and collaboration. — Possibility
In this "acceptance" view (which I deem to be promoted most by social institutions), one accepts the reality of what the situation is more-or-less (minor political tweaks not withstanding on whatever minor political spectrum you are on), and then move forward as a happy warrior. Thus making friends, climbing the mountain of one's own self-actualization, and abiding the day in the normative socio-economic setting is the about as good as it gets.
The more we understand what we’ve built and how it sails, the more it can become a ‘collaboration panacea’. — Possibility
So your ‘positive ethics’ has no principles for correct action in the real world. You think you’re doing something, but you’re achieving nothing in reality - everything you think you’re doing is happening only in your mind. — Possibility
Thus says the person who forces the other person into the game...Blithely ignorant. — schopenhauer1
the world is NOT going to respond the way you expect it to - not because it’s trying to enforce anything on YOU, but because YOU don’t get to decide how it should go. — Possibility
. I know that something exists, and something is aware of existence. How I fit into that is what we’re all trying to figure out by interacting with the world and learning from our mistakes. — Possibility
What you’re ignoring is that YOU are not the central character of reality. — Possibility
So thus we get to place people in a game in non-optimal conditions for the individual. — schopenhauer1
Describe to me what ‘optimal conditions’ would be for an ‘individual’ to exist. — Possibility
An underlying impetus is not goal-directed, but neither is it random. Like a Mandelbrot set (only six-dimensional), it has a simple pattern that leads to an ever-increasing complexity without a definite result. The diversity comes from the point at which each ‘section’ of the pattern resists the impetus. — Possibility
The method of antinatalism only reduces possible suffering to zero for a non-existent possibility. You can’t do anything with that. It’s a strawman. — Possibility
While you exist, you cannot avoid contributing to what others would refer to as ‘harm — Possibility
You cannot be certain that someone will not be harmed by your action — Possibility
Your ethical perspective is dependent upon being the ONLY ethical perspective. — Possibility
(which defeats the purpose of ethics). — Possibility
On what grounds? If an action takes place before the person exists, then it is not an action against that person, but against something else. — Possibility
As an example, ‘reduce ignorance, isolation and exclusion’ is a negative ethics, whose corresponding positive ethics - ‘increase awareness, connection and collaboration’ - works in harmony with it to enable actions that violate neither. — Possibility
But intentionally placing people into the game to "figure it out" (real easy words for people who have harder circumstances, but that's a secondary point), and "interacting with the world" and "learning from our mistakes". Why should anyone be put in this game to go through it? Self-justifying circular answers ensue. — schopenhauer1
????? Is a world without people a world without suffering? I'd say yes. So is a world where antinatalism is applied a world without suffering? I'd say yes. So if your goal is to reduce suffering to 0, one way to do so is antinatalism — khaled
How about: increase awareness by 50 but increase ignorance by 10 (I'm just using arbitrary numbers because I don't know what these mean). Is that allowed? By "increase awareness" it is allowed, by "reduce ignorance" it's not allowed. Contradiction see? So which should take priority. — khaled
There are none currently. As you so elucidated. — schopenhauer1
Not true. Ethics is just about how to act as how not to act — khaled
What do you understand ‘suffering’ to be? — Possibility
It’s not possible to increase both awareness and ignorance with the same action. Awareness is acquiring information about the world; ignorance is rejecting available information. — Possibility
So negative ethics cannot stand alone. — Possibility
Ethics is only about how not to act in relation to the conducting of an activity — Possibility
There is no game: no activity that one engages in for fun or amusement; no form of competitive activity or sport played according to rules; no episode or period of play ending in a final result; no secret and clever plan or trick. — Possibility
You don’t have to try and figure it out, you don’t have to interact with the world, and you certainly don’t have to learn from your mistakes. — Possibility
Why do you say ‘currently’? — Possibility
How does this
So negative ethics cannot stand alone.
— Possibility
Follow from this
Ethics is only about how not to act in relation to the conducting of an activity
— Possibility
They seem like unrelated statements which I don't even understand — khaled
You asked if there are any optimal conditions. I said there were none currently. In pure theory, there could be a universe that has complete optimal conditions that is tailored for every individual's absolute paradise (and everything can be turned off to suit what one wants at any given time), but that is not this reality as you have noted. We only have this reality. And if you say, we have to "fit" this reality, then that is the game that you deny that it is. No, it's not made by humans, but the way you describe reality (interacting and collaboration.. do it or pay the consequences or whatever your negative consequence is of not following your model), it is indeed something one must try to get a "handle of". There is some technique, some WAY, some thing that has to be done and if one doesn't do it, one suffers from it.. This to me is game-like. One plays by the rules or one doesn't get to benefit from playing the game or winning it. Yes, I know you are going to object to "winning" or "rules" but that is essentially what you are laying out. Even if you deny this, and then repeat your "collaboration" chorus, it doesn't negate what it is amounting to. You can say it differently, but your model is as much a game as the normative models that are around which are about the same.. deal with reality.. here is how.. growth-through-adversity in some fashion or other be it collaboration or anything else. — schopenhauer1
The difference is that you seem to think we should have a different reality. Bear with me while I attempt to understand what you’re proposing here. — Possibility
So this universe with optimal conditions could possibly exist, but only within the mind of an individual, and only in absence (or ignorance) of any other form of existence. You’re effectively yearning for oblivion - this is your ‘absolute paradise’.
But let’s say an individual wishes to manifest this ‘absolute paradise’ they have imagined in which to exist. The individual would need to manifest another existence (its absolute paradise) with which to interact. In order to know what to manifest, it must have some idea of what could possibly exist. But if nothing exists except itself, then it cannot know of any other possibility, and so can only manifest another instance of itself, with the potential it perceives within itself. — Possibility
I get that you’d like reality to reflect your own value system - we all would, because that would mean we no longer have to experience prediction error, which we tend to evaluate as ‘bad’ experience. But you’re criticising a reality that you don’t know enough about to even begin to propose an effective alternative. It’s like what Banno refers to here regarding critical thinking without context - like the patient trying to tell a neurosurgeon where he went wrong. It’s ignorance and hubris to think you know better than a reality you don’t even understand. It just smacks of a two year old tantrum, to me. — Possibility
There is no objective ‘good’ or ‘bad’, no ‘some thing that has to be done’ - there is simply existence and whatever sense we make of it. Your interpretations of how I describe reality will always look like a ‘game’ to you, it seems. But for me, there are no rules except those we make for ourselves or attempt to impose on others. — Possibility
I don't buy into this beyond good and evil BS, that life "must" be had by yet MORE people so that those individuals can experience "growth-through-adversity". Your collaboration mumbo jumbo is just another version of "growth-through-adversity" schemes to say justify why life should be lived out by yet more people. Next. — schopenhauer1
Let's take a thought experiment.. let us say antinatalism caught on and a majority of the world thought like an antinatalist. What do you think that would look like? — schopenhauer1
But in order to consciously initiate an action, a positive ethics is required. — Possibility
It appears to me that your positive ethics is to ‘do what benefits the individual’ — Possibility
If you always prioritise your negative ethics, then your only actions will be — Possibility
you’re asking those who subscribe to your form of ethics to also rely on your subjective evaluation of possible future harm to someone who doesn’t exist, weighed against your evaluation of the action’s benefit to the parent as an individual. — Possibility
By your own ethics, however, YOU don’t get to decide that for them — Possibility
The benefit/harm to the individual can ONLY be evaluated by the individual in question. So, by your ethics, the parent is well within their rights to evaluate procreation in relation to their own perspective of the harm/benefit scale — Possibility
And there is nothing in your ethics that says they shouldn’t ignore information that it’s in their best interests to ignore. — Possibility
I don't think this is correct. Ethics is about what you "should" or "shouldn't" do on some moral level but it doesn't actually have binding power. I don't need to think X is the right thing to do to do X. I can still do X even if I think it is wrong. So no you do not need positive ethics to consciously initiate an action. Do you appeal to a moral principle every time you go to have breakfast? — khaled
And anyone in their right minds would clearly see that there is no way they benefit more from having a child than their child suffers their entire lifetime. "Suffering due to not having a child" is a form of suffering. What they would be proposing is that that form alone outweights ALL forms of suffering their child will experience. There is just no way that's true. — khaled
I don't get where this ignoring information thing came from. I'm not ignoring any information as far as I can see — khaled
Not what I’m saying at all. You have in your head a concept that you think is close to what I’m arguing here, and you’re running with that instead of reading what I’ve actually written. I have never said ‘growth-through-adversity’, and I have never said that life should or ‘must’ be lived by more people - because I don’t believe that it should. Talk about strawman. Take a moment to try and honestly understand what I’ve written before rejecting it based on your own assumptions of what I must be saying simply because I disagree with you on something. — Possibility
They’re more afraid: of those who would ‘harm’ them, of bringing ‘harm’ to others, of an unwanted end to their precious existence, of losing loved ones, etc - everything has so much more value, both positive and negative. — Possibility
And with the loss of ever more individuals, each individual ‘suffering’ increases in severity for those who remain. How long do you think this antinatalism would last, once an individual recognises there are two options that would most certainly ease this intensity for themselves? Which option do you think would be more attractive? — Possibility
So, while I admire the heartfelt motivation, as long as the priority is the individual you will never reduce the qualitative impact of ‘suffering’ in the world - not with antinatalism. And I maintain that it is the ethical perspective that lets you down, not the prescription of ‘don’t procreate’, which I would otherwise support. — Possibility
Roughly speaking, negative ethics would be about preventing or mitigating suffering while a positive ethics would focus more on creating well-being and happiness.
I feel like you're conceiving of this idea of positive versus negative ethics through a utilitarian lense. And yes, when you perceive of it that way there can definitely be internal contradictions. I'm not a utilitarian and I'm not interested in defending it. Personally, when I think of a negative ethic it's more like the biblical "thou shalt not" or a political rights-based approach which forbids you from clubbing someone over the head as you walk down the street (i.e. acknowledging their rights at the bare minimum.) It doesn't in itself make for a particularly good society, but it does accomplish the bare minimum. — BitconnectCarlos
Ok, all I'm saying here is that negative ethics can be viewed through many different lenses. A negative ethic could be as mild as don't murder or steal from people because it violates their rights. I'm not going to come in and defend the non-aggression or try to reconcile it with birth because it's just not something I've ever really been able to make sense of. As far as I've heard negative ethics are just about getting people NOT to do certain things and we can conceive of that in many different ways. — BitconnectCarlos
Ok, just keep in mind when you keep bringing up terms like "maximizing well-being" or "minimizing suffering" you're strongly, strongly hinting towards a utilitarian perspective of things. I've read Kant and he really isn't concerned with happiness or really even minimizing suffering. The NAP also isn't concerned with minimizing suffering. — BitconnectCarlos
So what are we arguing about? — Possibility
You might answer, ‘because I was hungry’ - to which they might then ask, ‘well, why did you have breakfast because you were hungry?’ The reasoning you give for initiating your action X, whether or not you employed that reasoning at the time, will eventually come back to a certain moral principle which reassures you that X was the right thing to do — Possibility
or at least be more aware of where our moral principles contradict each other and where we discard them in favour of ‘survival instinct’, for instance — Possibility
these moral principles are those we deem ‘necessary’: not just a ‘should’ but a ‘must’. — Possibility
Anyone in their right minds’ is a subjective value structure. What you mean is ‘anyone in YOUR mind’. This is your perspective of their life and the life of their child, not theirs. Someone else’s evaluation of their own individual yearning to be a parent and the possible life of their own child is always going to be drastically different to your perspective. Suffering isn’t about quantity of instances, but about qualitative evaluation. As someone who places no value in the existence of either individual (only in the quantity of suffering they represent), your logical evaluation of their possible instances of ‘suffering’ means exactly squat to them. There is no way you can know what is true for either of them. — Possibility
they can still ignore your claim that procreation would be ‘harming’ a possible child more than it relieves their own yearning, and there would be nothing morally ‘wrong’ about that, by your standards — Possibility
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