That doesn't avoid the problem I brought up. I doesn't even address it. It's like calling a banana agnostic. Consent doesn't come into the former, like knowledge doesn't come into the latter. You're talking nonsense. — Sapientia
As I mentioned unless the parents initially have sex there is no fertilization process. And contraceptives are also used to avoid this.
Nevertheless there is no evidence for this scenario. It has the absurd and grotesque consequences that you are essentially claiming a child murdered by her parents chose those parents.
Even if a soul wanted me as a parent I would prevent them from coming here because I know what this life is like. So even if a soul desire to exist here for this temporary time we can chose not to let them via contraceptives.
And I don't believe most parents even put this depth of analysis into the reproductive act.. — Andrew4Handel
I'm surprised you didn't realize that was not my statement, but was quoted from the OP. — John
Consent does come up when creating a child because a future child will have the ability to consent in the same way an unconscious person will when he or she awakes. — Andrew4Handel
Your protest is ridiculous, as if you are incapable of imagining a future state of being. — Andrew4Handel
When you are creating a child it certainly seems you are imagining you are doing the future child a favour or else what else could you be thinking?
You are making it sound like before birth a parent never thinks about the future child. People paint nurseries blue and buy toys when trying for a child.
Consent is an issue because humans (or at least i certainly do) value consent. So because we cannot consent to come to exist here the whole act is undermined and dystopian. An analogy is if someone told you that they could make you an elixir of life that could only be made by killing ten people. The outcome desirable but the methodology is hopelessly flawed. — Andrew4Handel
So, you were merely being flippant, then? And now you contradict yourself in saying both that you are surprised I didn't realize that, and that you realize that I did realize that. In any case I agree, there's certainly no point pulling wool over the eyes of the blind. — John
Fair enough, but although your "serious" points were perhaps not intended to be flippant I found them too lightweight/superficial/ ill-considered/trivial to warrant any kind of response, let alone a serious one, so I passed on those. — John
Consent is a huge moral and legal issue yet life is not founded on it. — Andrew4Handel
That's also fair enough. I think that that's as much a comment on your own original comment, to which I replied, as it is to my reply. It was kind of like-for-like. I matched your if-then with a suitable if-then of my own. — Sapientia
But I did provide a resolution to your nitpicking in the second point, if I understood it correctly. If the reference to a person is problematic, as it implies someone where there is no one, then lose the reference to a person. — Sapientia
How in the world are you figuring that mutilation and "physical effect of them physically existing" would be at all the same thing in my view? — Terrapin Station
I believe we can freely think and move our bodies (usually) but..we can't choose our parents, our gender, our race,our school etc. — Andrew4Handel
Rubbish. My comment was not intended to be flippant or significant, I just responded assuming that you must have been silly enough to seriously believe it was my comment you were responding to, as unlikely as that may have seemed that anyone would think that: since I couldn't think of any other sensible reason why you would bother saying you were glad that we agreed. I was being charitable in fact. — John
Firstly, you don't know that. If people are souls, and souls exist prior to birth, then it is possible they do consent to being born. — John
Again rubbish. If you read it carefully you will see that you just repeated in different words the same point I made in my comment, and didn't "resolve" anything at all. — John
Sigh... we just had a thread on this exact topic.
The argument is bunk because there is no one to harm. QED. — Thorongil
Which is wrong why? The exact act of mutilation is wrong for no reason because it has intrinsic moral value? No, it's wrong because it's harmful and causes pain (mainly mental) to the object. — BlueBanana
I don't really get the logic that not procreating does not equate to preventing at least one 'something' to exist once born and suffer. — OglopTo
What's that an argument for? Extermination or time travel? When a person is born, there's a person we need to think about. We could try to address those issues in a sensible manner. — Sapientia
So, there is no someone who is harmed by virtue of coming into existence in and of itself. Merely coming to exist isn't a harm. After coming into existence, a person is subject to harm for a number of reasons, virtually all of them identifiable as people, things, other causal agents, to which the responsibility for harm may be attributed. — Ciceronianus the White
(2) the harm done after being born may be attributed to the causal agents. — OglopTo
I think it is a semantic quibble nonetheless people can't consent before they come to exist but we know they will be able to withhold consent and that we are not creating a robot. — Andrew4Handel
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