Certainly one should not unnecessarily impose suffering on others no matter what. But it also stands to reason, which I will just call Argument Against Paternalism, is to try to benefit someone else by imposing on them challenges to overcome which they could not consent. — schopenhauer1
So it's mistaken to assume that because you now would act kindly even without the censure of your community that you would have reached that point without it. — Isaac
When did I claim that? — khaled
Because I'm not a heartless bastard? Why are you implying that if it wasn't a duty people wouldn't do it? — khaled
Why would I not save a drowning person if I can? — khaled
For me virtue is doing more good than the system demands without expecting any compensation for it. — khaled
I don't understand why whenever I share this view people worry that it will somehow suddenly make people cold and uncaring towards each other. — khaled
I would assist them so what difference does it make? And I would furthermore argue, again, that I'm not the only one that doesn't see such an obligation. That this isn't some universal law or anything inherent in the definition of community.
I'm more so surprised by people who must make it a duty to help. Is that to imply that if it wasn't a duty you wouldn't do it? — khaled
If you meant that it's better to save a drowning person than to not, then no one is disagreeing there, sorry for misunderstanding if that's the case. — khaled
You don't usually apply your own judgement in place of others, no. But the reasons why matter. Note that we got here from this:
If you're in an abusive relationship, surely you should cause heartbreak. It'd be just as easy to come up with situations where you should cause pain.
— Echarmion
via this:
When I talk of “harm” I mean causing more than you alleviate. So vaccinating a child isn’t harm, even though it hurts and is against their wishes. — Echarmion
So is harm different for children and adults? Or is harm really only relevant when dealing with children or other dependents, and the general rule is actually about choice or consent or freedom? — Echarmion
Which part precisely? When did I ever say life had “more harm than good”? Please quote me this supposed BS.
— khaled
As per above, does it matter whether life is, overall, harmful or not? — Echarmion
You're asking for something that's impossible ("you'd need a time machine"), but instead of concluding that, therefore, the standard cannot be applied, you apply it anyways and then claim it's actually violated. — Echarmion
Well, perhaps it was just a misunderstanding then. What are virtuous or right actions? — Echarmion
There are probably going to be things you end up doing just because you don't want to damage the relationship (and I don't necessarily refer to a romantic relationship here). — Echarmion
After all, even in extremely oppressive circumstances, there is usually some kind of choice you could make. — Echarmion
and that there is therefore no need for censure in order to reach that point — Isaac
So I suppose I skipped a stage in my assessment. Do you think it's important to a society that at least a large proportion of it's members are kind? Or do you just not care what we do to each other? — Isaac
where did I imply that there was no need for societal pressure to make me act kindly? — khaled
I don't understand why whenever I share this view [that we do not need moral obligations] people worry that it will somehow suddenly make people cold and uncaring towards each other. — khaled — Isaac
And what does that have to do with my argument? — khaled
I'm saying you have no justification for that assumptions because the mere fact that adults now don't require a moral duty to perform acts of kindness does not mean that a world in which such moral duty did not exist would continue to behave that way. — Isaac
But I see from your other posts that a lot of this hinges on your idiosyncratic conflation of 'moral duty' with 'law'. — Isaac
I'm saying you have no justification for that assumptions because the mere fact that adults now don't require a moral duty to perform acts of kindness does not mean that a world in which such moral duty did not exist would continue to behave that way. — Isaac
So it's mistaken to assume that because you now would act kindly even without the censure of your community that you would have reached that point without it. — Isaac
Because you are using them interchangeably. — khaled
And the second I thought was common sense. — khaled
I meant to ask where you're getting the assumption that they're not interchangeable. — Isaac
if I grew up in a neighbourhood where theft and murder are the norm, and I was reprimanded for not participating, I think most people would say that I do NOT have a moral duty to steal and murder. — khaled
Nit that I'm saying all social censure is in the form if moral duties — Isaac
but the expression of a communities moral duties largely takes the form of social censure, not legal recourse. — Isaac
Therefore the "assumption" that they're not interchangeable is warranted. — khaled
But if consent is something that matters, then the imposition is necessary, because its the conditio sine qua non for consent. If the core of morality is people deciding their own destiny, then it seems to follow that it's a moral good to create that ability. — Echarmion
I mean obviously I do think it's permissible to cause impositions if you cannot get consent. Else we'd not be allowed to operate on unconscious patients etc. — Echarmion
The point is that you cannot assume people would act as they do in isolation from the social pressures around them and some of those social pressures are the expression of what society considers to be moral duties. — Isaac
I don't see much point in talking about what "society considers moral" in the first place if by that you mean what we are socially pressured to do. As that is not constant across a society, much less across the world, so why should we care? — khaled
If we can agree that forcing individuals to do things without their consent is inherently problematic, then this raises a lot of questions regarding the act of having children. — Tzeentch
In an abusive relationship you could cause harm by breaking up because doing so will alleviate more form yourself. — khaled
I don't know what you mean by "harm is different", I don't know what I said to make you think that in any way. — khaled
But regardless, even applying this "general rule" when do we have consent to give birth to people? — khaled
So why are you now still trying to get me to make a claim that I never made for a reason? — khaled
It is not uncommon for consent to be impossible to obtain. For instance, we don't pull the plug on comatose patients. The whole POINT of consent is that the default value for any request is "no" until that request is actually made and answered positively. — khaled
I already said "virtuous" is doing more good than the system demands.
"right" is the best possible outcome (donating to charity/saving the drowning person/ etc) — khaled
Well if I were to take this to the extreme, then you have an abusive relationship. And I am pretty sure we can agree that the abusers in an abusive relationship are being immoral. — khaled
What do you mean? — khaled
The thread is about antinatalism, which makes a moral claim. So we're talking about morality in some form. Since no moral claims are constant (shared across a society or the world), then antinatalism has to either demonstrate the source of its objectivity, or make arguments from within the relativistic framework, or just stop. — Isaac
But how does this work if you're at the same time saying I am not allowed to assess harm for others? — Echarmion
The question was essentially when we are allowed to cause harm on the basis of our assessment that doing so is better than the alternative. — Echarmion
What would it mean to have consent from nonexistence? — Echarmion
I was asking you whether the question is relevant I'm your view. — Echarmion
We're not asking comatose patients for their consent. That'd be a pointless exercise. We ask what their interest is, according to our best guesses. — Echarmion
How can you have a moral system that doesn't demand the best possible outcome? If you know a better outcome is possible, why would you not demand that outcome? — Echarmion
You usually have the theoretical choice to not comply. Oppression doesn't take away your ability to make choices, it takes away your ability to make those choices operative by imposing consequences. — Echarmion
moral duties typically lead to laws. — khaled
Not really. We don't pull the plug. Period. You don't "guess" you only look at the amount of harm done in both cases and pick the one with least harm. You take the conservative approach. I challenge you to come up with a situation where you pick the option that does more harm when consent is not available. — khaled
Yes but when non compliance results in severe harm that's not really a choice. That scenario is what people call "an imposition". For instance: You theoretically could kill someone in public, you'll just be executed for it. In this scenario, while techincally there is a choice, practically there isn't. That is what impositions do, practically remove choices. — khaled
Creating situations for suffering so you can get to consent.. — schopenhauer1
This is honestly why I rarely form the argument around consent and just keep it at unnecessary suffering because at the end of the day, you are creating the suffering so you can ask consent. That is why I brought up the idea of let's say you know that a baby will get tortured if it is born. But it doesn't exist yet, so does this consideration matter? I mean according to your view nope, there is no thing to give consent, so who cares right? Fine, at that point the original AN argument stands.. causing unnecessary suffering onto another is wrong. — schopenhauer1
You can make an argument combining both too. Unless you get consent, you shouldn't put someone into a negative state without knowing what the person wants. Why would the assumption be that this is okay?
Surely this goes back to something about suffering itself which makes its imposition on someone else wrong. That is not something intuitive or relevant to your judgements? — schopenhauer1
If not, I'd like to know why you think you can just do that on behalf of someone else other than rhetoric for the sake of argument. Cause I doubt you really do, other than this case of procreation. I can't find out if this guy wants to be put in a state of negative situations.. so I'll go ahead and proceed. Wrong. — schopenhauer1
And here's why in my first formulation in the post I said unnecessarily and absolute not instrumental. — schopenhauer1
When it is our job to minimize the other party's suffering AND when we know that our choice is actually minimizng suffering (vaccines for example). Which only really happens with dependents. — khaled
What would it mean to have consent from an unconscious person? In both cases: Meaningless question. Point is, you need consent, and you don't have it. Doesn't matter why you don't have it. — khaled
Not really. We don't pull the plug. Period. — khaled
You don't "guess" you only look at the amount of harm done in both cases and pick the one with least harm. You take the conservative approach. I challenge you to come up with a situation where you pick the option that does more harm when consent is not available. — khaled
What's wrong with having such a moral system? Why would you demand? — khaled
Yes but when non compliance results in severe harm that's not really a choice. That scenario is what people call "an imposition". For instance: You theoretically could kill someone in public, you'll just be executed for it. In this scenario, while techincally there is a choice, practically there isn't. That is what impositions do, practically remove choices. — khaled
Because without it one risks causing harm or distress against an individual's will, regardless of one's intention. — Tzeentch
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