Lastly, I think that the millions and the grand can swap places in a subtle way depending upon the individual. Therein, I believe, lies the end of absolutist pro-lifeism/universal AN.

Have a great day, friend! — DA671

An idea worth pursuing! Less is more!

I've explained why it is a form of subjectivism. I've also explained why it is often thought to be a form of objectivism (objectivism and externalism are often conflated). And now you are just ignoring what I've said.
If you think DCT is a form of objectivism then you are not using that term as I do. Indeed, I think you would be unable to provide a clear definition of the term. But that's semantics. You accused me of inconsistency. I took the trouble to explain to you something I had already explained in one of the quotes from me. And now you are simply ignoring what I have said.
Fine. — Bartricks

It's not really inconsistency to change one's view on something. And I asked rather than accused.

I remembered you gave good reasoning for morality being subjective. An explanation of how you were wrong the first time could have affected my view on the matter.

And I am not ignoring what you said - I was responding directly to your question of why I thought DCT went into the objective category. I thought it was a special case, as I've only ever heard its proponents arguing that morality is objective. Further, you can forgive me, someone that barely knows what DCT is, for thinking that, when the Florida State University's Department of Philosophy also thinks its objective.

Sometimes. :up:

Because it makes us feel good. It's the pleasure of a clear conscience: "I didn't cause harm to anyone." For some people, it's one of the highest pleasures there is.
— baker

Do you think people would still feel that pleasure on a planet empty of all human life bar them? Would they look around a fell good that they're causing no harm? — Isaac

Some certainly would.

Personally, I doubt that, and what little information can be gleaned from isolation studies does not yield any evidence of contentment at having caused no harm.

Most studies in human psychology are done on college students (many of whom major in psychology) and who participate in those studies for credit points toward the final grade. So that's one set of reasons for being skeptical about those studies being universally applicable to all humans.

Secondly, psychology studies tend to assume that all people are essentially the same; that nurture, acculturation are only skin deep. And that there is only one normal way for humans to respond to a certain external stimulus.

For those who hold those assumptions, there is nothing that would detract them from doing so ...

But it would create a person whose existence would bring enormous benefits to the other humans already in their community. — Isaac

Except, of course, if the child is of the wrong skin color/ethnicity/socioeconomic class, has a disability, is one too many.

You keep ignoring this.

Most studies in human psychology are done on college students — baker

Yes, but these were not.

psychology studies tend to assume that all people are essentially the same; that nurture, acculturation are only skin deep. And that there is only one normal way for humans to respond to a certain external stimulus. — baker

I'm not sure what psychology studies you've been reading, but I'd be extremely surprised to find a single modern study assume that all people are essentially the same.

So, it's a big black mark against procreative acts that they create a great injustice.
— Bartricks

This is bare assertion. — Isaac

No it isn't. Every single harm an innocent person suffers is an injustice. How many harms do you think that is? Oh, it's all of them. That's quite a lot, isn't it?

There's no question that the injustice is huge. An innocent person gets nothing remotely approaching what they deserve.

Now, if an act is going to create a big injustice, Isaac, do you think that a) is likely to generate moral reason not to perform it, or b) is morally unimportant and can reasonably be expected to generate no moral reason not to perform it?

It's a, isn't it?

If you think that on this particular occasion, the massive injustice that procreative acts produce is one that doesn't create moral reason not to perform them, then the burden of proof is on you to provide evidence for that.

There are lots of cases where an act creates an injustice and it is nevertheless overall morally justified. But in all of those cases what's doing the work of making the act overall morally justified are positive moral features, such as that the act will prevent an even greater injustice. That's not true of procreation.

Perhaps you can just insist that procreative acts themselves are the counterexample as most people seem to have the intuition that they're morally okay.

But you've already tried that move and I asked you a question which you didn't answer, no doubt because it was obvious what the answer was and what it implied about the intuitions in question.

So, I'll ask it again. Imagine a person has been brought up in an antinatalist cult. They have been told, over and over and over and over again, that it is wrong to procreate. They have been told this by virtually everyone and in virtually every way possible. This person - like others who have been brought up in the cult - now gets the intuition that procreation is immoral. After all, that's why people try and indoctrinate people, isn't it? It works.

Now, what force does that intuition have? Would it be reasonable to think that it was good evidence of the wrongness of procreation? What do you think?

Once more, if you borrow 1million to generate 500,000, then you're a rubbish business person. You've made a loss.

Now, when a person deserves something, that's a debt. So, when you create a person, you create a debt. They deserve a harm-free happy life.

They're not going to get anything like that.

Here's how it works. If happiness is deserved, then it's good when the person gets that happiness because it pays down a debt.

If the debt has been paid and the person gets further happiness, then that's not deserved, but it's good. It's pure good - it's profit.

Once more: when a person is created, they deserve a harm-free happy life. If they get that, then that's good because it was deserved. Good, in other words, becasue the debt has been paid. If they get additional happiness - so, if they're not just living a harm-free happy life, but a harm-free ecstatic life, then that's profit.

So, back to business school: if you borrow $10m but you only make 5m, then your business is bad. You can point out that 5m is good. But it was only good that you made 5m because it paid off half the debt. Overall the business is bad - it made a huge loss.

All you can do is keep pointing out that $5m is good. Yes, other things being equal it is. And it is good insofar as it lessens the losses you would otherwise have made. But in the larger context of a business in which you borrowed 10m to generate it, it's rubbish - the business is a bad one.

And that's procreation: it's a bad business. The moral debt that is incurred by starting it is one that it is not going to repay.

But perhaps you are addicted to gambling on fruit machines and do not understand this.

Every single harm an innocent person suffers is an injustice. How many harms do you think that is? Oh, it's all of them. That's quite a lot, isn't it? — Bartricks

Yep. With absolutely no measure of how bad each is, and so no measure of how bad the total harm is. Just the number of them doesn't inform us how bad they are.

There's no question that the injustice is huge. An innocent person gets nothing remotely approaching what they deserve. — Bartricks

Again conflated deservedness with value.

Now, if an act is going to create a big injustice, Isaac, do you think that a) is likely to generate moral reason not to perform it, or b) is morally unimportant and can reasonably be expected to generate no moral reason not to perform it?

It's a, isn't it? — Bartricks

Yep.

There are lots of cases where an act creates an injustice and it is nevertheless overall morally justified. But in all of those cases what's doing the work of making the act overall morally justified are positive moral features, such as that the act will prevent an even greater injustice. That's not true of procreation. — Bartricks

Yes it is. Procreation creates massive positive outcomes for the community at large which easily outweigh the minor negatives of a load of minor undeserved harms.

All you can do is keep pointing out that $5m is good. Yes, other things being equal it is. And it is good insofar as it lessens the losses you would otherwise have made. But in the larger context of a business in which you borrowed 10m to generate it, it's rubbish - the business is a bad one. — Bartricks

Bad at business, yes. Again that doesn't have any bearing on the value of $5m it is still worth $5m no matter how badly it was obtained in business terms. The poor business performance does not impact the value of the outcome. You're still confusing deservedness(profit/debt in your business example) with value.

The moral debt that is incurred by starting it is one that it is not going to repay. — Bartricks

Agreed. A bad thing.

Outweighed by the good.

Attempt to represent your antinatalist argument.

First, attempt to clarify the meaning of key terms. I understand antinatalism as a view committed to negating the statement “Human procreation is morally permissible,” committed to by natalism. Natalism affirms the proposition “Producing human offspring is morally permissible” is true. Antinatalism, on the other hand, denies the truth of the proposition. It instead affirms the negation “The proposition ‘producing human offspring is morally permissible’ is false” is true.

Next, isolate statements.

To procreate is to create an innocent person. They haven't done anything yet. So they're innocent.

An innocent person deserves to come to no harm. Thus any harm - any harm whatever - that this person comes to, is undeserved.

Furthermore, an innocent person positively deserves a happy life.

So, an innocent person deserves a happy, harm free life.

This world clearly does not offer such a life to anyone. We all know this.

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.

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. — Bartricks

(Im leaving the entire transcript simply for context. The statements in bold capture the meat of your argument.)

Argument 1: INNOCENCE

1. Human offspring are necessarily innocent beings so long as they lack the capacity to participate in social interactions.

2. The human offspring produced through procreation lack the capacity to participate in social interactions.

3. Therefore, human offspring produced through procreation are innocent.

Structuring the argument this way disambiguates the term/phrase “They don’t do anything,” at least. It still fails to provide details regarding sufficient or necessary conditions for innocence (e.g., moral agency, gestational or prenatal development—postpartum development, social participation, physiological/psychological autonomy, etc). When is innocence lost? How is it lost? If we emerge randomly, without our choosing, and dependent upon external information, social influences, parents/peers, etc, for our development, then why is innocence considered lost at some arbitrary point?

Argument 2: DESERT

1. Innocent humans deserve to live a life with pleasure/happiness and free from pain/suffering.

2. The world is such that pain/suffering cannot always be avoided and pleasure/happiness cannot always be guaranteed.

3. The world, therefore, cannot provide innocent humans with the life that they deserve.

4. If the world cannot provide innocent humans with a life that they deserve, then they shouldn’t be brought into the world.

5. Therefore, innocent humans shouldn’t be brought into the world.

I not sure about this notion of desert. I think that a world free from suffering can be determined good on some normative views, as well as the presence of pleasure. Are you saying that the absence of pleasure is good? A type of a-symmetry take? Im not convinced that innocent humans inherently deserve anything (good or bad). Why should the universe owe us anything? Let alone a utopian existence.

It is curious to me how you can possibly think the claims you made are equivalent to mine.

Bartricks: apples are fruit.

You: so you are saying there is an apple and necessarily apple is made of the letters of the word leap spelt wrongly with two ps. Leapp. So, necessarily apples leapp. That's what you are saying.

And leaping is something athletes do. So you are saying apples are athletes. But I am not sure about that. I think there may be some athletes who aren't apples.

The first premise of your 'innocence' expresses nothing I have said.

It is sufficient to be innocent that one has not done anything freely. And that's the case with a newly created person. The newly created person has not done anything freely.

And if a person is innocent, then they deserve no harm at all. Thus they deserve a harm free life. Which is not what they will get.

That alone implies antinatalism.

It gets worse though. For not only does an innocent person deserve no harm whatsoever, they also positively deserve a happy life. So they deserve a positively happy harm free life. Which is obviously not what they will recieve. Even a highly beneficial life will fall far short of the heavenly existence innocent people deserve.

You think innocent people do deserve to come to harm?

I dont think it's a new argument to not bring an innocent person into a cruel world. It's actually a very basic consideration that most people who have children immediately dismiss.

But that's not my argument. My argument is that innocent people deserve entirely harm-free happy lives that this world is not going to provide.

I am not arguing that this is a cruel world or anything like that. I am arguing that it is wrong to create an entitlement to something that you know will not be satisfied.

That is the same thing in different words

no it isn't.

Just because you have a hammer that doesn't mean everything is a nail.

My argument goes through even if life here - where life is understood to be the time between birth and death - is beneficial.

If I order a coffee and a doughnut and I am only given a coffee, then I have grounds for complaint. My complaint is not that the coffee is bad, but that I am owed a doughnut. You, presumably, think that's the same as saying the coffee's bad.

All you're saying is it is wrong to bring an innocent person into the world if they are going to be harmed at all. They will definitely be harmed at least a little bit in the world, for as you have argued in another thread death is harm. Therefore it is wrong to bring an innocent person into the world. I'm saying that is not an new argument. The question of anti-natalism "is it right to bring a child into this world" implies that scenario.

You seem to think any argument for antinatalism is the same argument. Once more, that is not my argument!

The Torture Paradox

Extreme pain (Torture) is worse than Death (Murder)!

However, the penalty for torture is less severe than the penalty for murder.

WTF? — Agent Smith

If you follow your statements in bold, my representation is at least compatible with your argument (e.g., “They are innocent because they haven’t done anything” — “They are innocent because they lack the capacity for moral interaction”). Wouldn’t you say the latter better avoids ambiguity and vagueness? I basically just elaborated on “…they haven’t done anything”. An alternative approach would be to continue to request clarification until you sufficiently produce a clear statement. The problem with that is, im afraid, that you may instead of providing a brief explanation for what “haven’t done anything” means, will further complicate things by going on some tangent.

Do you not agree that terms such as ‘do, done, and doing’ or ‘this, that, and thing” are insufficient by themselves to provide the information necessary for a comprehensive philosophical discussion? Wouldn’t it be an improvement to explicitly state the full predication rather than just a verb like ‘doing’? Are you capable of tracking the statements within a dialectic? Isolate a single statement that ive made (and represent it accurately), then say what’s wrong with it, and then proceed to provide an argument to substantiate your criticism. Not just say “I just don’t see how you think this represents my argument” then fail to state what it is thats wrong and substantiate it, just to go on to spend the bulk of you time, work, and effort to deliver an unintelligible tangent of insults, straw man, and possibly pure and utter gibberish.

It is sufficient to be innocent that one has not done anything freely. And that's the case with a newly created person. The newly created person has not done anything freely. — Bartricks

First of all, your just now introducing ‘freely’ into the discussion. That was not included in your statements that i was attempting to understand. Second, your not providing sufficient or necessary conditions for innocence unless your saying “has not done anything” is??? Is that a necessary or a sufficient condition? And, again, what thing hasn’t been done? Can you eliminate any vagueness at all there? What must not yet have been done to qualify innocence?

You think innocent people do deserve to come to harm? — Bartricks

I can’t grant innocence because I don’t understand how you are determining or evaluating it. Im agnostic pending conceptual analysis. As far as i can tell, harm is unavoidable — possibly a necessary contrast for experiencing pleasure. I don’t understand where desert is necessary or possible. Who is measuring what exactly in determining what is deserved or not? I presume you are denied the pleasure of traveling via instantaneous transmission, correct? Don’t you deserve that? You need to provide conceptual analysis on innocence and dessert before we can move forward in the conversation.

Nothing you are saying makes a blind bit of sense.

I have said numerous times what I mean by innocence. And it's nothing remotely similar to the claims you are attributing to me. It's surreal.

Me: it is sufficient to be innocent not to have freely done anything wrong

You: so, you mean by innocent 'capable of interacting with a snail'? Why not be clear like that?

Me: no, that's not what I mean and I can't begin to understand how you think those mean the same.i mean what I said.

You: but it is at least compatible with being innocent in your sense of the term that one is able to interact with a snail. And as snails are small and speak snailish, you are saying that innocent people are small and speak snailish. But I am agnostic on whether anyone can speak snailish, so your case is a bad one. Beep.

Me: nothing you are saying makes a blind bit of sense.

You: by a blind bit of sense I take you to mean two litres of carrot tears. Now, a snail will drown in carrot tears as you well know. So I think you have not improved your case, but conceded it. Boop.

Me: to be innocent is not to have done anything wrong. It doesn't get clearer than that.

You: I cannot grant that as I do not know what it means. Does it mean 'Paris is a place in my inner ear'? Or does it mean 'curried eels'? You see I only understand myself and sentences of my own, and so you need to write something that will prompt me to write a sentence that has the same meaning as yours. But as there is no relationship whatsoever between the meaning of your sentences and those I have to replace them with the chance of this occurring is vanishingly small. Biddle.

] Do I mean sufficient or necessary? Well, I used the word sufficient, didn't I. So what do you think? If someone says 'sufficient' do they mean 'sufficient' or 'necessary'?

It is sufficient to be innocent not to have freely done anything wrong.

This is what I said in the op:

To procreate is to create an innocent person. They haven't done anything yet. So they're innocent. — Bartricks

That's also sufficient. If you haven't done anything at all, then you haven't done anything freely.

Now, all you need to worry about is whether that's true. And it is true - obviously so.

So then next thing you need to worry about is whether innocent people deserve to come to harm. And they don't. That's also obvious.

And then you need to wonder whether subjecting an innocent person to a life here will mean that the person in question comes to some harm.

And it does.

Is it wrong to create some undeserved harm? Yes. Other things being equal: yes.

Nothing you are saying makes a blind bit of sense. — Bartricks

Another empty accusation. Which statement are you referring to? Whats the problem with it? Id be prepared to provide an argument to substantiate your criticism.

I have said numerous times what I mean by innocence. And it's nothing remotely similar to the claims you are attributing to me. It's surreal. — Bartricks

You haven’t bothered to convey your meaning with me. I haven’t CLAIMED anything regarding your meaning of the term. I simply have attempted to clarify your meaning and because of the surreal level of vague and ambiguous language you insist on using, I have had to resort to fumbling around in the dark to try and make sense of it. I mean, it’s literally my first attempt at recapitulation here. I at least established a gap we can now attempt to narrow or bridge.


What do you get out of this? Snails? really? Are you a child or a troll? I picture you as one of those shot out old men who live as a hermit in their house with 15 cats and is always, not only talking to oneself, but arguing too. I wonder if you straw man yourself as well, or are you charitable to yourself?

it is sufficient to be innocent not to have freely done anything wrong — Bartricks

LOL! I love how you keep sneaking in terms to strengthen your sense of the term “innocence”! Look at your progression:

1st attempt: “To be innocent is to not have done nothing”.

2nd attempt: “To be innocent is to not have done nothing FREELY”.

3rd attempt: “To be innocent is to not have freely done anything WRONG”.

I mean, you know its fine to revise your meanings and views on things, right? It is just better done openly and honestly in good faith, not underhanded like. You may have not intentionally done so, i suppose. Ok, working with your latest sense of the term, What is it to have and not have freely done anything wrong? When do we cross that threshold? What is the threshold? Is there a threshold? Who determines who has or doesn’t have autonomy? What determines right from wrong?

Are you able to interact with my questions? Or are you going to use humor and insult to evade from them as well?

Do I mean sufficient or necessary? Well, I used the word sufficient, didn't I. So what do you think? If someone says 'sufficient' do they mean 'sufficient' or 'necessary'?

It is sufficient to be innocent not to have freely done anything wrong. — Bartricks

Your not tracking. Im asking about the conditions (necessary or sufficient) required to be considered innocent. You keep asserting “yeah it’s sufficient, it’s sufficient… um, i did say sufficient” Im not asking you if being innocent is sufficient — that isn’t even an intelligible question. Im asking what WHAT are the sufficient conditions??? Are the sufficient conditions “having not freely done anything wrong”? If so, im going to ask you all the same questions I did in my last response:

What is it to have or not have freely done anything wrong (what is done anything referring to)? When do we cross that threshold? What is the threshold? Is there a threshold? Who determines who has or doesn’t have autonomy? What determines right from wrong? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Im not saying anti-natalism is false, btw. I just don’t understand your argument for it. A clear conveyance or definition for each term your introducing to the dialectic would help. Even if we have concepts for the terms, it remains unclear whether or not they are compatible until we have the discussion. If you haven’t already come up with a consistent meaning for those terms, you may want to stop and work on that since you will likely run into inconsistencies to work out.

I see it more imply as a net positive and negative equation. Your opening post only tallies up the negatives, but what of the positives?

By not having a child you are denying the creation of a person who will laugh, love, smile, be happy, fulfilled, etc. Is it not wrong to deprive that?

So then the question is, will that person suffer more or less then they will be joyous and fulfilled. I am not going to answer that question but am merely pointing out my opinion the original post is wrong to only focus on the negatives.