intuitions like the ones you start from are to be taken seriously - in which case the clash involved in your conclusion should indicate that your logic has gone very wrong somewhere. — Isaac
I'm not trying to argue with you here. We've already agreed that being inherently involves "suffering" and certainly the individual being subject to forces beyond their control (i.e. non-consensual forces), you're just much more sensitive to it than me.
I'm not trying to justify procreation here. I'm not sure if I need to. — BitconnectCarlos
Your logic like others, goes something like this "Even if I was to know a being would be born into certain torture, I would not consider this future event because that being doesn't actually exist yet, so how can I consider a future being or event if they don't exist yet!" — schopenhauer1
Why is my view that humanity should be preserved "obstinate assertion and indignation", but your view that "cause[ing] harm to someone or a negative" must be avoided at all costs not similarly unsupported assertion?
They're both just moral assertions about what ought and ought not be done. — Isaac
The basis is on the idea that preventing harms are more important than whatever other excuse you have to procreate someone. — schopenhauer1
the actual operation of morality isn't "visions of humanity", but "What is this going to do to someone else?". — schopenhauer1
We start with the intuition that I have a moral duty to respect the autonomy of others and take actions that affect them only if I have their consent.
We then infer that if I do not have the consent of an entity, I must do nothing to them.
If an entity cannot give consent? Children and animals for instance? We make special rules. Rocks and trees? We make different special rules.
Beings that don't exist? No rule needed, since I can't do anything to them.
But, you argue, I could cause the non-existent entity to exist; the entity I cause to exist could not possibly give consent, because at the time I cause them to exist, they don't exist.
To you that might look like an absolute moral truth but to most people, I submit, this will look like a bit of sophistry, or dorm-room philosophy, or stoner profundity, or, in the best case, a paradox. However it's taken, it doesn't look like the foundation for an ethical position, nothing on the order of respecting the autonomy of others.
My point was that the way you're relying on consent in this argument may be logically defensible (or may not -- there are logical challenges I'm not bothering to mount) but it is not persuasive. — Srap Tasmaner
If you want to abandon the reliance on consent and just ask me if it's moral to bring a being into the world knowing with certainty they will be tortured continuously, that's a different question. — Srap Tasmaner
From where did you get this notion of what morality really is? — Isaac
You have to start somewhere. — schopenhauer1
if you follow my argument's premises, you literally create no new lives of suffering in the world. If you follow your argument's premises, more people who will suffer will be created. To then say, "But in an interview, the person born said 51% of their life was good, not bad!" is not a justification for thus creating the conditions for suffering for someone else. — schopenhauer1
Since you don't seem to find anything logically suspect in non-existent entities, let's look at a related case.
You arrive on the scene of a car wreck. There is before you on the ground a young man whose heart has stopped. As he is unconscious, he cannot give consent for you to perform CPR.
Your position suggests that there is no issue here at all, that it is absolutely immoral to perform CPR. — Srap Tasmaner
odd starting place is also not sufficient justification for trying to convince others of it. — Isaac
This is essentially your argument over and over. — schopenhauer1
They also ridiculed Galileo. — schopenhauer1
I still think you ought to behave a certain way, it doesn't stop being about how others ought to behave. I just don't think there's a logical method by which I can derive that feeling. — Isaac
How do you propose to debate whether an axiom is 'correct'? What measures would we judge it by? — Isaac
It needs the axiom that annihilating humanity is an acceptable conclusion — Isaac
b) intuitions like the ones you start from are to be taken seriously - in which case the clash involved in your conclusion should indicate that your logic has gone very wrong somewhere. — Isaac
It's quite an unusual principle that one's personal emotional response is what provides the basis for rights — Isaac
Your position suggests that there is no issue here at all, that it is absolutely immoral to perform CPR. — Srap Tasmaner
2. Do nothing: no effect. — Srap Tasmaner
(impossible to calculate) — Srap Tasmaner
Not in this case. And not in most cases. This is what I'm saying. Doing nothing to the guy in the car crash scene will result in his death. Passivity has consequences. — khaled
But relative to other actions it is possible. For example if you have to kill one innocent person vs kill 5 innocent people you can't sit there and say "Gee, I can't tell which is better because this is impossible to calculate" — khaled
Even more base axioms. What shope is doing for example is clashing multiple intuitions against each. — khaled
Wait, so when you argue for a conclusion, one of your premises has to be "This conclusion is acceptable?". So if you want to find the sum of 2 and 2 but you think "2+2=4" is an unacceptable conclusion then 2+2 does not equal 4? — khaled
You start with premises and you reason through them. And whatever you get at the end is true as long as the premises and logic are true. The truth value of an argument does not change because one thinks the conclusion is unacceptable. — khaled
Why would a clash of intuitions somehow lead to a logical inconsistency? Our intuitions are not non contradictory. Our brains are not as brittle as a logical system. They can handle some amount of internal inconsistency. — khaled
The argument is that my right to have children provided by the intrinsic value of human life is trumped by the child's right not to be harmed. And I think most people would agree that in MOST cases, the right of an individual not to be harmed trumps most other "rights" unless said individual is harming others. Tell me of a situation where harming others is considered acceptable other than self defence, and when the alternative to not harming a few individuals is harm to many individuals. — khaled
How can I possibly know, especially if he's just been in a car crash, whether he will consider the rest of his life good or bad? — Srap Tasmaner
I can deny responsibility for his death all I like. — Srap Tasmaner
Or I could agree and say the only way to be sure I am not, no matter my intent, causing more suffering in the world, is to have no dealings with other people at all — Srap Tasmaner
But I may still have a negative effect on others, however indirectly, just by living, and the only way to be sure I'm not doing harm, no matter my intent, is to make sure that I do not exist. — Srap Tasmaner
But are you saying I must only make these obvious short term calculations? — Srap Tasmaner
wondering about what those involved think of their lives? Or guessing what might be awaiting them around the corner? Or speculating about the effect they have on others? — Srap Tasmaner
And how do we decide which of these clashing axioms trumps which? — Isaac
Yes. If you were working out the length of timber needed for a table cross brace using trigonometry and you got the answer 204m would you unquestioningly proceed to the timber yard and ask for a 204m length of timber for you furniture project, or would you presume you'd makde a mistake somewhere in the calculations? — Isaac
Therefore it must be OK to cause harm without consent. — Isaac
So how come the 'true' conclusion changes depending on which intuition I start with? — Isaac
a minute ago it was all "2+2=4" — Isaac
intuitions can all be right or all wrong — Isaac
Having children. — Isaac
As I said, by reasoning from even more basic axioms. For me "It is okay to risk harming others" is much harder to believe than "It is not okay to have kids". Therefore when it comes to procreation, the former win, since I consider procreation a form of risking harming others. — khaled
The difference here is that in the case of antinatalism the logic has been revised over and over and the premises do directly lead to the conclusion. — khaled
what you are proposing is changing the premises to get a different conclusion. Which is perfectly valid in ethics, but I would rather not do that (because as I said it reeks of self deception) — khaled
you can't just contradict one of your own premises in the conclusion. — khaled
No. A minute ago it was all: "You can't just tell yourself that 2+2 does not equal 4 just because you don't like the fact that it is even though the logic adds up." That's all I was saying. — khaled
Is that your only example? Because if it is then that's my problem. I can't live my whole life abiding by certain moral codes and then just make an exception in one spot because I feel like it. — khaled
Are you suggesting that there's been no opposition to anti-natalist arguments on the grounds of faulty logic? — Isaac
That's not 'reasoning' — Isaac
Why is it "self-deception" to choose one starting premise, but coldly rational to choose the other? — Isaac
Where have I contradicted one of my premises? — Isaac
You can't just ascribe some moral intuitions to mere self-deceptive preferences — Isaac
From where are you getting this sharp distinction such that 'not harming others' is some objective moral code divorced from your personal preferences, but continuing the human race is some trivial preference akin to preferring vanilla to chocolate ice-cream. — Isaac
Believing in moral relativism and then attempting to mount an attack against a moral position is basically like a discussion of whether or not you prefer vanilla or chocolate ice cream. — khaled
How can I possibly know, especially if he's just been in a car crash, whether he will consider the rest of his life good or bad?
— Srap Tasmaner
You can't. But you know statistically that the majority of people are not pianists. And you know statistically that most people with disabiliites learn to live with them in a couple of months or years. So you can surmise that it is more likely that this person would want to be saved. — khaled
Again, it's not 'because you feel like it' any more than the moral code in the first place was 'because you felt like it'. From where are you getting this sharp distinction such that 'not harming others' is some objective moral code divorced from your personal preferences, but continuing the human race is some trivial preference akin to preferring vanilla to chocolate ice-cream. There's no sense at all in humanity that people feel this way about those two things. They are on a par at least. either they're both trivial preferences, or they're both really important moral intuitions. — Isaac
The only reason I can think of for such a practice is the hope of 'recruiting' people who've not noticed this hidden premise, or griping about the world without actually having to bear any responsibilty for doing anything about it. Either I find reprehensible. — Isaac
The only reason I can think of for such a practice is the hope of 'recruiting' people who've not noticed this hidden premise, or griping about the world without actually having to bear any responsibilty for doing anything about it. Either I find reprehensible. — Isaac
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