The community is not bearing the brunt of what it means to live out a life. It is simply a notion in the head of the actual people living out life. It is the individuals which are what are being prevented from suffering. — schopenhauer1
The parents don't go around thinking "my child wants to live, therefore I am going to create it". That's not a decision that actually happens. — Echarmion
what justification is there to make this decision despite being unable to foresee the consequences and being unable to verify in advance whether the child actually wants to experience life? — Tzeentch
The justification is... being able to foresee the consequences (life is really good - love, sunsets, adventure etc) — Isaac
we can't possibly check in advance whether they want these things, — Isaac
They are unable. They may believe life is worth living, but there's no way of knowing whether their child will. — Tzeentch
we can't possibly check in advance whether they want these things, — Isaac
Indeed. Sounds like a fantastic reason not to force those things upon someone. — Tzeentch
So it is a moral premise of yours that whatever is the law or social norm is morally relevant? How, in your world, do laws and social norms get changed? — Isaac
No. Some might be making that point, but it's not mine. I'm quite comfortable with imagining a future child and acting in what I imagine to be it's best interests. — Isaac
The justification is... being able to foresee the consequences (life is really good - love, sunsets, adventure etc) and we can't possibly check in advance whether they want these things, so there's obviously no moral obligation to do so (to have a moral obligation to do something impossible is stupid). — Isaac
Indeed. Sounds like a fantastic reason not to force those things upon someone.
— Tzeentch
There is no someone. — Isaac
No. Some might be making that point, but it's not mine. I'm quite comfortable with imagining a future child and acting in what I imagine to be it's best interests. — Isaac
Clearly a parent gets to decide whether they want to create children. — Tzeentch
Indeed. They want a child and therefore they will create one. So what justification is there to make this decision despite being unable to foresee the consequences and being unable to verify in advance whether the child actually wants to experience life? — Tzeentch
What justification could you possibly have to drive to the store while being unable to foresee the consequences and unable to verify in advance whether anyone wants to take the risk of sharing the road today with you? — Echarmion
So it is a moral premise of yours that whatever is the law or social norm is morally relevant? How, in your world, do laws and social norms get changed? — Isaac
The premise is that you have an obligation to uphold social contracts you are a part of. So if you work as a doctor for instance, you cannot refuse to treat a patient (unless you can't), because treating patients is what you "signed up for". Society has you "sign up for" a lot of things, depending on the society (Just today I discovered you can actually get sued in the Netherlands if you don't help someone as best you can to survive an accident Benkei)
How do social contracts change? I don't know, I'm not a political theorist or sociologist. — khaled
No. Some might be making that point, but it's not mine. I'm quite comfortable with imagining a future child and acting in what I imagine to be it's best interests. — Isaac
Something that doesn't exist doesn't have future interests in existing. — khaled
you cannot claim to have a child "for the child's sake". There is no child who has a sake, whereas in the first case there was. — khaled
since you can't check in advance whether or not the child will actually think life is good, it would be unethical to have them. — khaled
Usually you say something like "Oh sure, risking harming the child is bad, but it is offset by the survival of the human race" but here you seem to be switching to "Sure, there is a risk the child hates life, but that doesn't matter". And I don't see a convincing reason why it shouldn't matter. — khaled
There is no someone. — Isaac
This keeps being repeated, and it seems to be the last wall to hide behind, but you build your walls flimsy indeed.
Tell me then, for who is it we seek to preserve the planet? — Tzeentch
What we cannot coherently do is wonder if they'd prefer to exist or not because nothing which has that choice is capable if forming an opinion on the matter. — Isaac
Well don't you think that looking into it might be relevant, if you're going to make claims about it? — Isaac
Why? The vast majority of people broadly agree about stuff that's good, so it can't be a case of making a poor prediction. It's not reasonable to deny action in cases where we cannot obtain all potentially relevant data (we'd literally do nothing if that were the case). So I'm lost as to why you think this particular inaccessible bit of data prohibits action. — Isaac
I'm curious why you think this is a special case actually. I cannot think of many cases where we take risks with others' wellbeing without permission. — khaled
I guess what it boils down to is the claim that at the point of decision there is no individual whose well-being can be violated, foregoing the fact that we already know such an individual will come about as a direct result of our actions. — Tzeentch
One only needs to conclude there is no way of knowing, and make decisions based on that. — Tzeentch
It simply makes me wonder what the justificiation is to take such a risk. — Tzeentch
I have not made claims about the rate of change of laws. So I don't need to look at how they change. I have set out a moral framework where socially placed responsibilities play a role. — khaled
Not having complete data always makes us pick the conservative option, unless we have consent to do otherwise. — khaled
If I don't know that you're going to like a certain suit, I won't buy it for you with your money. Because if I turn out to be wrong, I will have caused harm. — khaled
I cannot think of many cases where we take risks with others' wellbeing without permission. — khaled
No. It's not that there's no way of knowing. It's not a data point which exists but is not 'knowable'. The data point doesn't even exist. — Isaac
The benefit. Same as the justification for any risk. Why would you think this one any different? — Isaac
What on earth kind of heterodox definition of 'conservative' are you using which allows the extinction of the human race to fall under it? — Isaac
You will have caused harm if it turns out you're right too. I'll have no suit. — Isaac
Every time you drive anywhere, for example. — Isaac
If your moral framework includes a feature which you cannot even predict changes in, it would seem little better than just throwing your hands up and saying "I'll just do whatever everyone else is doing". If the law said you must murder Jews would you do so? — Isaac
1) The essential nonsense that we cannot consider the future person being born because there is no person currently existing. I've seen uses of "potential parent" in the mix. Yet, "potential child" is also a consideration of course. Someone will exist, and it is that person who will exist that we are preventing either the suffering or non-consent, or the "not being used for means to an end" result.
Essentially what this comes down to is the themes I have seen here regarding community vs. the individual. The community may be ordinarily needed for the individual to survive, but it is not the community that lives out life.
2) Rather "community" is an abstract concept of interactions between individuals composed of institutions, historical knowledge, location, etc. However, it would be using an individual for an abstract cause that isn't any actual person to then determine that people need to be born to feed the community's needs.
3) The locus of ethics is the individual, not the community. The community is not bearing the brunt of what it means to live out a life. It is simply a notion in the head of the actual people living out life. It is the individuals which are what are being prevented from suffering.
4) There seems to be an underlying Paternalism in the natalist's thought. Other people must be affected greatly because I deem it good. This is the height of hubris to think other people should affected greatly in a negative way by what you deem is good for them. In doing so of course, many other negative things have been imposed/violated. Suffering, consent, using people as a means for your/community's ends. There are a number of reasons this paternalism argument is simply license to use do these negative things on behalf of other people.
I still like khaled's analogy of being kidnapped for a game regarding this paternalism. If I was to kidnap you into a game where this structurally meant to be many challenges to overcome, and there is also sufficient room for contingent harms to also affect the player, and the only way to escape is death, so you are de facto forced into playing the game or commit suicide, being harmed along the way, is the a good thing to do?
The only defense people are going to give for this is going back to the nonsensical argument that in the birth scenario there is no "one" to be kidnapped. Yet antinatalist arguments keep repeating that there will be someone born, and this "kidnapped" in the future. By being born this becomes the case, even if at the moment one decides, there is no actual person yet. — schopenhauer1
Denying that future person would exist when the decision to procreate is made and that this future person, is what is being prevented, and denying that we can generalize instances of suffering seem to be going on here. However, at the same time, it is recognized as something to keep in mind when discussing the outcomes of poverty and disability.
Also, Benkei I know you have a preference for semantic preciseness here. I can respect that, but I also think this actually gets in the way as to obfuscate the argument at hand. For example, it really doesn't matter if I say: "There will be a state of affairs where a person will be born in the future and by not procreating this state of affairs will not occur", or if you say "preventing a potential child" because those two things are pragmatically the same thing. — schopenhauer1
One can prevent all risk for a future person, period. — schopenhauer1
You know a discussion is in a good place when the factions that have emerged stop engaging with the critical comments and instead reaffirm to each other how right they are in a big, happy circlejerk. — Echarmion
One can prevent all risk for a future person, period.
— schopenhauer1
No, one cannot, period. — Echarmion
You have acknowledged that birthing a child is taking a risk in regards to its future, implying we do not have all the information. Whether that information is unknown or unknowable is irrelevant, because the basis (or lack thereof) for our decision remains the same. — Tzeentch
Because one is taking a risk on someone else's behalf, obviously. What necessity is there to make such a decision? — Tzeentch
And you keep doing it. — schopenhauer1
I keep reaffirming logic, yes. It's gaslighting only if your view is so muddled that it feels the need to undercut the principles of logic, like the principle of non-contradiction. Future persons cannot both exist and not exist at the same time, and yet you claim they do again and again. — Echarmion
"Does no harm". Last I checked "the human race" was not a person. On the other hand, a generation of resentful malcontents comprises of many people. — khaled
If I was right, and I didn't buy a suit, you would just be where you started. — khaled
The question is what happens if I do buy the suit. I could be wrong: In which case I make the situation worse (you have a useless suit and less money) or I could be right and make it better: In whichcase you got a brand new suit you like. Given these chances, I think we can both agree that buying the suit is wrong, without asking first. — khaled
If I cannot reasonably expect not to hurt others while driving, I shouldn't be driving, you're right. But since I can, I can drive. — khaled
I don't use law and responsibility interchangeably. It is just often the case that if the law think I have a responsibility to do something, I do. — khaled
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