It is wrong, then, to create an innocent person when one knows full well that one cannot give this person what they deserve: a happy, harm free life. To procreate is to create a huge injustice. It is to create a debt that you know you can't pay. — Bartricks
Most interesting, oui? — Ms. Marple & Hercule Poirot
In the meantime I can hopefully help a little by pointing out several issues raised about the OP.
1) “This is, I believe, a new argument for antinatalism.
To procreate is to create an innocent person. They haven't done anything yet. So they're innocent.”
- Having done nothing neither makes someone ‘innocent’ nor ‘guilty’. It is irrelevant.
2) “An innocent person deserves to come to no harm. Thus any harm - any harm whatever - that this person comes to, is undeserved.”
- You have failed to explain this. If your position is that an innocent person deserves no harm but that is what innocent means then you have no argument. You are just stating something and expecting people to follow.
Either way, it is faulty to paint things so black and white. In a scenario where two ‘innocent’ people’s interests conflict harm is inevitable so your definition does not hold up at all. Such inevitable harm comes about through ignorance/misunderstanding. You can still argue on some level that ‘neither deserve harm’ even though two innocent people have just caused harm to each other, but only if you accept that the judgement of what someone ‘deserves’ is a judgement made with an effort to ignore any blame due to ignorance.
3) “Furthermore, an innocent person positively deserves a happy life.”
- Unsubstantiated claim.
4) “So, an innocent person deserves a happy, harm free life.”
- To repeat. Unsubstantiated claim.
5) “This world clearly does not offer such a life to anyone. We all know this.”
- We know this because life without any degree of ‘harm’ whatsoever is not ‘life’. Life requires learning and learning is always, at some stage, a hardship.
6) “It is wrong, then, to create an innocent person when one knows full well that one cannot give this person what they deserve: a happy, harm free life. To procreate is to create a huge injustice. It is to create a debt that you know you can't pay.”
- None of this follow as you are riding on too many unsubstantiated claims and poorly sketched out terms.[/quote[
I think it can be retranslated as "Why would it be okay to feel that YOU can impose a significant amount of harm (that didn't have to be imposed) on ANOTHER because YOU deem it okay to do that?". You can make up all the excuses in the world, but all of them would be violating the principle of not creating unnecessary harm and using people. You can then turn around and say that it is good to cause unnecessary harm, but that would be immoral in almost any other circumstance (to KNOWINGLY cause guaranteed unnecessary and profoundly significant harm).
7) “Even if you can guarantee any innocent you create an overall happy life - and note that you can't guarantee this - it would still be wrong to create such a person, for the person deserves much more than that. They don't just deserve an overall happy life. They deserve an entirely harm-free happy life.”
- I might want to be able to fly like a bird or win the lottery. A ‘harm free’ life would not be a ‘life’ at all. This seems to be a rather naive view. It is a bit like expecting a child raised where their every action is praised blindly and expecting a well rounded individual to emerge from such a methodology of raising children. Many parents have attempted to ‘protect’ their children too much and with pretty horrific outcomes. The very same idea of ‘no harm whatsoever’ (regardless of deserving said harms) inflicted upon someone would result in early death due to said person being incapable of looking after themselves. I do not view a ‘happy life’ as a life under the perpetual guardianship of a tyrant whose sole purpose is to shield said ‘innocent’ from every single possible harm.
No human race, no need for concern about justice or anything else. — Cuthbert
We are currently mortal and transhumanism is in its infancy so we still require children to replace those who die. I think we always will produce new children as the universe is such a big place, so even in the very distant future of transhumans, I think will still need newborns. — universeness
Just as no child has lost out from never having been conceived, so no child was done an injustice by being conceived, because no child existed to experience either the loss of opportunity or the injustice. — Cuthbert
I can, and will ? — I like sushi
- You validated what I said about the loose use of terms and I do not assume what is or is not meant by ‘harm’ (meaning if he meant ‘unnecessary harm’ then he should have said that AND been particular about what ‘unnecessary harm’ means). — I like sushi
No red herring. He argued, quite clearly, that ‘innocent’ people do not deserve ‘harm’. If unborn/non-existent people are somehow different in terms of ‘innocence’ then that is something the OP needs to outline and differentiate between not me. — I like sushi
- I would say that life necessitates suffering and that suffering is necessary for any life-form in some capacity. That is what I would call ‘necessary suffering’ rather than throwing a blanket over all suffering as ‘unnecessary’. You yourself pointed out that there is ‘necessary’ and ‘unnecessary’ harm. If you are not entirely opposed to the idea of ‘necessary harm’ - which would be peculiar as if we call something ‘necessary’ then it seems fairly validated - then must surely admit that some ‘harm/suffering’ is actually beneficial. — I like sushi
In conclusion it seems that the ‘harms’ you berate are the ‘harms’ I see as strengthening peoples and individuals so they can live good lives. — I like sushi
I did not consent to gravity either … and it is right there in the hyperbole where the nuances of the argument begin to be lost. Gravity is not exactly a phenomenon of nature like birth is, but picking apart what is similar and different in these two phenomenons might help. — I like sushi
My view is basically formed around the use of hypotheticals and general dislike for ‘ethics’ (meaning something announced to the community as ‘good’ or ‘bad’). My dislike is due to the constant self manipulation we torture ourselves with due to peer pressures and general societal ‘norms’. — I like sushi
My argument for antinatalism (whenI complete it) is more or less going to be about how the argument can benefit us collectively and as individuals. — I like sushi
Once another person lands on the island, ethics is now back in play. The absence of people using it, doesn't negate its validity. — schopenhauer1
So you are literally stating the cause for which you are using people (by harming them unnecessarily). — schopenhauer1
I understand why anyone with little in their lives on a day-to-day basis, except suffering, turning to whatever escapism they are able to take part in. I wish I had more power to help all such people.Guilty pleasures, that's all that's on offer at the moment. If not eliminate, like you said (morphine), minimize suffering — Agent Smith
The whole consent issue was not mentioned in the OP sadly. — I like sushi
That's because the consent argument is quite different.
This the problem with most of you - you seem incapable of focusing. — Bartricks
To dispute this claim you need to argue either that people are born deserving to come to harm, or you need to argue that despite creating this great injustice there is something else of overwhelming moral importance that justifies a person in creating it. — Bartricks
"Don't go changing, to try and please me......" — Cuthbert
You are implying that we have a moral obligation to prevent moral nihilism from obtaining — Bartricks
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