Malicious intent has been shown to apply to both. Since in both cases you intend to do harm. Just in one you intend to mitigate it as much as you can. — khaled
I find that in every day life this is never used — khaled
We don't force people to exercise for example, even though we have a reasonable expectation of counterbalancing benefits. — khaled
I don't find convincing because it is never used in daily life either. I can't break your leg because I intend to pay your hospital bills later — khaled
I'm saying that both birth and MGE are examples of malicious intent. Because they both have the willing intention to do harm. What differentiates? — khaled
If your goal isn't to say that there is something wrong with AN then what are you replying for? — khaled
It's because you are looking for ways to move the argument of existence vs. non-existence. You are trying to do "If a tree falls in the woods.." — schopenhauer1
I think I defined all three pretty precisely. — khaled
Correct. And concluding that one of the causes of timmy breaking his arm was that he was born. Because if timmy hadn't been born he wouldn't have broken his arm. What's wrong with this? — khaled
That's not really how I use the term. The way you put it I would say A was a cause of B. — khaled
The problem here is similar: when you say "harm", you mean an objective state of affairs, i.e. "the amount of harm in the universe has increased". I don't think "harm" or "suffering" can be meaningfully assessed from such a (imagined) objective vantage. Because to me, the moral relevance of "harm" or "suffering" is the effect it has on people's ability to make decisions. — Echarmion
But that's why I mentioned capacity to do harm. Does the capacity exist? Then don't do it. That capacity exists, even if there is no one benefitting from not being harmed. That is the focus in these formulations at least. — schopenhauer1
You can't even say that much for certain. Many parents regret having children, because they weren't actually prepared. — khaled
Because in this case if we don't buy it we ourselves get harmed comparably to how much we can expect the other person (who now can't buy the bread) to be harmed. I don't understand what's so difficult about this. — khaled
Is it more harmful to not build the pipeline than it is to build the pipeline? — khaled
It is basically always the more harmful option, because you're comparing a lifetime of suffering to the suffering of childlessness. — khaled
Because not doing so risks killing them. Which is a much greater harm than a broken rib for most people. I don't understand what's so difficult about this. — khaled
Most people don't want to die. — khaled
Would you mind if I press the button that has a 2% chance of killing you or breaking a bone for a 98% chance of giving you 1000 dollars without asking? Most people walk away 1000 dollars richer.... Heck, most people who have gone through the experience say that it was worth it! — khaled
If it is possible that someone will find life not worthwhile because they stubbed their toe once, yes. — khaled
On the other hand you are suggesting that benefits should also be factored in. That would mean that you are obligated to have children in many scenarios. If you can show that it is likely that they will be beneficial to have overall, then it becomes a duty to have them. But you don't agree with this. Which is weird. Furthermore you say that the risk of significant harm outweighs any considerations of pleasure. I don't see how you balance this. You have two different "variables" whereas I have one. — khaled
But then, as I said, if the focus is on protecting people's ability to make their own decisions, there is no reason to have a rule that no-one benefits from. — Echarmion
The capacity to harm someone in this fashion exists, no? If the person uses this capacity, harm will incur, no? Not hard. — schopenhauer1
No, it won't. Or, more specifically, there is no capacity to harm people by making them exist. That's not harm. No moral subject is limited in it's ability to exercise it's choice by being created in the first place. — Echarmion
So all instances of harm will not befall the person born? — schopenhauer1
I'm disputing your definition of "harm", so I am not sure what to do with that question. — Echarmion
But what are you disputing about harm.. Does that even matter? You don't think people get harmed after being born? I know you can throw out some wild scenario of a perfectly charmed life but if you do, I won't take it seriously. — schopenhauer1
What I am saying is "harm", in a moral sense, isn't simply you having a negative emotional response to something. If you trip over your own feet and fall, that will hurt, and you won't like it, but that isn't relevant in any moral sense. Tons of people can be involved in the relevant causal chain that lead to you falling - not just your parents, but anyone who had any interaction with you whatsoever. That doesn't mean any of them harmed you.
But if someone does intentionally trip you for fun, that is harm. The difference is not that tripping you is somehow more causal, or that it hurts more to get intentionally tripped. It's that you don't want to be afraid of constantly being hurt by people for fun, and so hurting people for fun is wrong. — Echarmion
Oh this stupid thing...back to Benkei's OP of causation. So, there are levels of nested causation. If you can prevent ALL instances of harm from befalling someone, do it. — schopenhauer1
You're not reading it properly. I am not saying nested causation doesn't count. I am saying causation doesn't count, period. It's not enough to be merely part of a causal chain that led to a bad emotional response. That's morally irrelevant. — Echarmion
It's not morally relevant to prevent unnecessary harm to another person (especially keeping mind contingencies discussed already about ameliorating from worse harm for people who already exist to be harmed)? — schopenhauer1
Given your definition of harm, yes. — Echarmion
How so? And how would your answer not relate to Benkei's OP about causation? Cause that's where I see this going... — schopenhauer1
First comes the question of what outcomes you should will, and only then can we look at what causal chains might be relevant with respect to that outcome. — Echarmion
again you seem to be going down this weird line that if two things are similar in one aspect, they must be the same thing. — Isaac
It's like you look to normal attitudes as a measure of what's convincing morally but then refuse to allow conception into that set of normal attitudes. — Isaac
That you phrase these as greater harms is irrelevant. — Isaac
In MGE there are no greater harms being avoided, with birth there are. — Isaac
Because as I've said for like the hundredth time we do not decide moral dilemmas by applying a single maxim. — Isaac
With exercise, the benefits of coercion would not outweigh the harms, given the methods we'd have to use. — Isaac
With exercise, there's and alternative method (persuasion). — Isaac
With exercise, failure to achieve the benefits is remediable. — Isaac
I'll do one more of these, but I'm not going to just point out the actual differences all the time when the whole "this is a bit like that so it must be the same thing..." argument is flawed. — Isaac
Like saying "there are just no examples -apart from the example you just gave". What kind of counter-argument is that? — Isaac
Most has been taken up trying to show that it is commonly held but inconsistently not applied to birth. Those arguments are flawed, and it is those I've been mainly opposing. — Isaac
What I wanted to point out is that you figure out whether something was necessary by making another comparison. — Echarmion
If they’re not prepared, I doubt they want them. — Pinprick
But you can’t be certain about this. The next family may very well be starving to death. — Pinprick
I don’t see how you can be sure that whatever unknown harm may befall the child will be less than the harm the hopeful parents (as well as hopeful grandparents, siblings, etc.) will experience. — Pinprick
But in this situation, you prefer to compare potential harms. Why is that? — Pinprick
Why is it ok to risk harming others while building a pipeline without their consent, but not ok to risk harming another person by having a child? — Pinprick
and it can’t be because of the amount of harm not doing so could cause (we’ve lived this long without a pipeline, so building one is more for convenience than anything else). — Pinprick
However, not having a child will cause more people to suffer. At the very least there are two parents, even more if you consider grandparents, siblings, etc. that may be negatively affected by the parents not having a child. — Pinprick
Putting exact numbers on things is ridiculous, but to illustrate the point, let’s say if I have a child it’s likely that he/she will suffer 20% of his/her life. Let’s say that by not having a child, I, my wife, and our parents will each suffer 5% more than we would if we had a child. Cumulatively, this amounts to an increase of suffering of 30%. Which is the better option in your opinion, and why? — Pinprick
So it’s ok to do because you think it will benefit them? — Pinprick
Presumably because they find life valuable, right? — Pinprick
Personally, I think my life is worth more than $1000, but everyone has their price. — Pinprick
So, if these two parents are considering having a child, and one parent states that they will kill their self if they have a child, then they shouldn’t have the child, regardless of how beneficial doing so may be for the child. — Pinprick
Even if you define it this way, surely you agree that harm happens once born, right? — schopenhauer1
The comparison is between: Harm done when doing the act vs Harm done by not doing the act. Not between existent and non-existent Timmy whatever that is. — khaled
It's like you look to normal attitudes as a measure of what's convincing morally but then refuse to allow conception into that set of normal attitudes. — Isaac
Because it is the topic of debate.... — khaled
That they can all be phrased as avoiding greater harms makes it dubious that “greater benefits” is the significant variable here. — khaled
What is the greater harm being avoided in birth? — khaled
I am giving examples that break it so that you continue to add caveats until you have a self consistent system with no side effects. Then I look to see if I agree or disagree with that system. That’s the point of these examples — khaled
With exercise, the benefits of coercion would not outweigh the harms, given the methods we'd have to use. — Isaac
Now you have to lay out exactly when this is the case and when it isn’t. — khaled
Like saying "there are just no examples -apart from the example you just gave". What kind of counter-argument is that? — Isaac
It points out that maybe you’re using the wrong principle. — khaled
no one here has argued that the AN premises are commonly held. — khaled
Huh? In order to say “My child will suffer” I have to compare two different “versions” of him? No. — khaled
The comparison is hard to notice, because it's such a natural thing to do. But when you say "I wish this didn't happen to me", you're not wishing for an absence, an empty set, because you cannot actually imagine the absence of a state of affairs. What you do instead is imagine a different state of affairs that the event isn't part of. Absence is always relative. — Echarmion
But they don't 'break it'. That;s the point. What you're doing is presenting situations for one maxim in which it is insufficient on its own to explain the result. That's entirely to be expected if we use more than one maxim. Nothing's being 'broken'. — Isaac
Why? Why would you expect there to not ever be any single exceptions. We've established that differnet scenarios introduce different factors to consider. What's so special about the number 1 that it can't be the sum total of cases with some given set of factors? — Isaac
That is exactly what you are de facto arguing by using examples of the form "but you wouldn't...". — Isaac
Apart from managing our body, working out social/moral dilemmas is the biggest job our brain does. It's occupied with it almost all the time at a tremendous rate of calculations per second. The effort is literally exhausting (one of our biggest calorie demands) and is most probably the reason why our brains barely fit through the birth canal (at huge survival cost). That anyone would expect the answers to be writable in a few pithy maxims is absurd. It's fiendishly complicated. Luckily for us we have the most integrated supercomputer the world has ever seen working on the problem almost every second of our waking day. The problem arises when, instead of trusting the results of that network, we ignore all but one region and expect the results to be anywhere near as good. — Isaac
Yes. And it's predictable, too. But the responsibility for that harm doesn't lie with just anyone who causes it. It only attaches to specific acts, in the same way that in a legal system, only specific acts are illegal. — Echarmion
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