No, that's not what I am saying. Your premise is <Consent should precede birth>. Your conclusion follows, <Because consent does not precede birth, therefore we should not procreate>. — Leontiskos
This precedence is both temporal and ontological. It is that premise that I am targeting. Consent doesn't precede birth. Birth precedes consent. That's how reality works. What you are doing is asking for or wishing for a different reality. The ontological principle of reality is that we receive before we give. Your alternative principle would have us give (consent) before receiving (existence). — Leontiskos
Antinatalism reminds me of Gnosticism, where nature and the material world were created by an evil god and one is thus supposed to escape this entire order of being. Or in modern terms, something like The Matrix. The true god is represented by Consent, and in the alternative, non-evil universe, Consent reigns. Given our gnostic situation, the best we can do is escape the material order by ceasing all procreation. Historically gnostics really did tend to eschew procreation. — Leontiskos
(Edit: I now see you have authored a thread, "If there is a god, is he more evil than not?" :razz:) — Leontiskos
I think consent has a place, but not the highest place. It does not trump everything else. — Leontiskos
You didn't respond to my argument. The argument you make here is your usual one and has nothing to do with a veil of ignorance. No reason to take this any further. — T Clark
Also, this particular argument is a bit different than just consent. Rather, it is saying that since we are IGNORANT as to how any person's life truly will play out in the course of their lifetime, AND we cannot get consent otherwise, we should do the option that is with the intention of the LEAST harm, which is of course, not even procreating that person who will be harmed to X degree. — schopenhauer1
I kind of like this notion, though I don't hold "Consent" to be independent of humans, simply entailed in humanity. If there is no humanity, consent disappears as well. — schopenhauer1
But this also relies on what "the good" is, and defines it in "negative" terms (what not to do). Suffering is weighted more heavily in this conception such that, causing negative/suffering unnecessarily on someone else's behalf is weighted as a bigger moral consideration than any of the positives that result from causing the suffering. Not causing great distress to someone is a bigger ethical consideration than say, buying them cake. — schopenhauer1
There's a problem with (1). People found guilty of crimes have a lot of suffering inflicted on them without their consent, so sometimes it's OK to cause suffering absent consent. — RogueAI
life is more than the avoidance of suffering — Leontiskos
The question is then whether these exceptions to (1) apply to the case of procreation. For example, we can cause suffering absent consent when punishment is due, but is punishment due in the case of procreation? — Leontiskos
I would appeal to a similar "inversion" argument to the one I already gave, but focusing on suffering rather than consent. Just as consent does not constitute an absolute principle, neither does suffering-avoidance. "I'd say life is bigger than suffering or consent."
The key here is that birth/existence is qualitatively different from, and ontologically prior to, consent and/or suffering. More directly: life is more than the avoidance of suffering, and therefore the desire to avoid suffering is not a sufficient reason to nix life.
Regarding the moral maxim of (1), I think it would apply to procreation in a very dire apocalyptic scenario, but I don't think it applies more generally throughout history. I don't know... There are a lot of different ways one could go with this. — Leontiskos
Anti-natalism doesn’t save anyone in particular from suffering. We are not doing anyone any good by not procreating. There has to be a someone to prevent someone from suffering. Life is ontologically prior as Leontiskos said. — Fire Ologist
I think this is throwing out a lot of important values we hold in other arenas. For example, if as a consenting adult I force you into a game you don't want to play because I think the game is bigger than any one individual's refusal, that seems mighty suspicious. And I am talking personal ethics here, which procreation (should) fall under. I do believe there is a discontinuity with the State/political ethics, but that is a different argument, which I can bring in if you want to make the category error of using laws like the draft, education compliance, and inoculations.
I also think it is a bit of a red herring to compare it to parental care of children under a certain age (often 18 yo). That is because usually the care is about preventing more harm in the future for that child, where this very specific/unique kind of decision is creating all of the potential harm in the first place. These are two different types of decisions regarding consent. At this point since someone DOES exist, it would be more harmful NOT to take care of them, as now you are not recognizing the rights of the child who does exist already, to be cared for, being that they have not fully developed into fully functioning adults yet, and had no say to be born in the first place. Presumably babies and children have a right not to be abandoned, neglected, or abused, for example, which is a different (positive/must do ethics) consideration rather than the (negative/NOT doing) ethics of simply not causing harm in the first place. One is palliative (as someone already exists and is exposed to great harms), and one is preventative (in the absolutist terms). — schopenhauer1
No humanity, no need for antinatalism or any other normative ethical principle. — schopenhauer1
Meaning, what is the point of being ethical towards beings that aren’t born yet, if ethics itself is not to be? — Fire Ologist
Why would we humans uphold any ethics above upholding the procreation of more humans, if upholding that ethics means that humans and ethics both equally should no longer be?
Antinatalism is just as much an anti-ethicalism. — Fire Ologist
So the case is really best exemplified by David Benatar's asymmetry argument that is now more widely known than when I used to discuss it. — schopenhauer1
Preventing happiness is less a moral obligation than preventing suffering. All things being equal, in the case of non-consent, and ignorance (like this Veil of Ignorance argument is saying), it is always best to prevent suffering, even on the behest of preventing happiness. — schopenhauer1
I think the argument avoids the question of whether life or existence is good. — Leontiskos
There persists the conflation between the ontological and the "moral" (in the modern sense). It is the difference between preventing something and preventing the potential/potency for that something. To prevent the potential for X will also prevent X, but it is not the same thing as simply preventing X. One could prevent their child from getting smallpox by vaccinating them or by having no children, but these two options are not parallel. The obligations with respect to each are somewhat different. — Leontiskos
Is Thanos from The Avengers a good example of an antinatalist? Specifically, a Thanos who snaps his fingers and everyone disappears without pain, not just half of them. No suffering + no potential for suffering = perfection. The theological gnosticism crops up its head again here, for the gist is that it would have been better for nothing at all to exist. I don't think the theological shift is avoidable given that your argument pertains to ontological realities and sheer potencies, rather than only to mere "moral" realities. To weigh suffering against life or existence will go beyond the "moral" insofar as evaluations of life and existence do not fall within the "moral" (in the modern sense).
But the Christian and Platonist traditions have been saying that being and goodness are convertible for thousands of years, and given that the argument does not recognize this seems to imply that it is weighed down by a specifically modern context. Yet to make an argument against life per se or existence per se is to move beyond that modern context. — Leontiskos
We are not living for ethics. Ethics is present because humans are around. — schopenhauer1
So the anti-natalist is saying, in order to abide by the ethical rule now, we must create the conditions where this ethical rule will no longer exist, since humans are the presence of ethics and no more humans will be present. The anti-natalist is saying we should eliminate the existence of the ethical rule for the sake of following the ethical rule. Just like they are saying we should eliminate the possibility of human procreation (end all future humans) for the sake of abiding by an ethical rule that is only found in existing humans. The anti-natalist gets to be the last ethical man standing, and the last instance of ethical behavior anywhere in the known universe. — Fire Ologist
But then if ethics didn’t exist until I did, how could it have been unethical for me to be born?” — Fire Ologist
The fact that the ethics summarized as anti-natalism arises in the human race means the human race must exist for the rule to not inflict suffering to exist, AND the human race should NOT exist because none of our consent to suffering could be obtained.
(It’s not quite a paradox because it holds “is” together with “ought not”, as opposed to paradoxically joining “is” to “is not” or “ought” to “ought not”, but it is certainly absurd.) — Fire Ologist
Anti-natalism is either a self-defeating way of saying, because of human suffering, it would have been better if humans never existed. Or it is simply passing judgment on God, saying God, a being whose mere existence entails ethics (like humans) was wrong to create humans and inflict suffering on them without their consent.
Absurd or Satanic. Better to rule without humans or their ethics in hell, than to consent posthumously to suffering in heaven. — Fire Ologist
Why should it matter if the ethical rule disappears though? — schopenhauer1
Because it undermines its enactment in the first place when it results in no ethical beings. — Fire Ologist
If humans disappear because all humans follow the rule, and with humans the rule disappears, then such humans would be being ethical for sake of a world without ethics. — Fire Ologist
we would be inventing ethical rules to justify not only antinatalism, but mass suicide, after wars to enforce the ethical rule once and for all (if we weren’t too incapacitated by suffering to act at all). — Fire Ologist
But life is not only suffering. We generally don’t think that. At least most of us. Often. — Fire Ologist
And some suffering is good (like right now I’m starving and soon I will be eating). “Hunger is the best sauce. The poor always eat well.” - Sancho Panza, Don Quixote. — Fire Ologist
It boils down to whether it is absolute that inflicting suffering without consent is always and only wrong. Life is not only the suffering of being wronged, it is also forgiveness. You really can suffer and move away from suffering. There really are both. I will be done eating today. You can give consent after the fact, after you’ve suffered without consent and say “oh well, life goes on.” Because there is not only suffering. — Fire Ologist
Most real suffering is self-inflicted. We break our own rules all of the time, and shoot ourselves in the foot, just so we can say “see, life is only suffering” to ourselves, regardless of those around us. — Fire Ologist
I just disagree it is moral or ethical that we should only focus on the suffering when deciding what world is better for any other people, such as any future generation. We need to see what is good in life just as well before we make out ethics and enact it. — Fire Ologist
Antinatalism upholds ethics high above the life and suffering of the human beings it is designed to promote, and this is absurd to me. If there is to be some grandiose place for any such high and mighty ethical laws, such as “thou shalt not inflict suffering without consent,” then there must be humans there to uphold it in that place. Ending humans ends any good ethical laws protect. — Fire Ologist
Why must there be humans there to uphold it in place? — schopenhauer1
Because as you said “Ethics is present because humans are around.” — Fire Ologist
Your argument is something like this:
"If there are no humans, the ethic cannot be followed". — schopenhauer1
No. My argument is if there are no humans around there are no ethics around. — Fire Ologist
. Your argument is if the ethics is antinatalism, there would be no humans around. You just just don’t see the absurdity of keeping the ethics in place without the humans to place it there. — Fire Ologist
I am not sure what this is supposed to translate to, ethically speaking. It becomes irrelevant given the considerations of suffering prevention being more ethically an obligation than happiness promotion, all things being equal. In fact, if what you are implying here is correct, it is your notion that has some template that people must adhere to assumed to be there prior to birth "The Good". But I am not sure completely what you are implying, so I'd hold judgement. "Life is good" seems a theological statement of some sort. — schopenhauer1
Clearly, the child did not have to experience any suffering. — schopenhauer1
So you are conflating two arguments into one here. It is precisely because people cannot be consented that this Thanos argument is wrong. Also, once people exist, taking their existence away, is not the same question as bringing people into existence, so should probably be thrown out as some sort of counterpoint. There's too many differences. — schopenhauer1
This is actually touching upon Schopenhauer's notion that we are NOT actually "being" in some rested/Platonic way, but because we are in the world of Maya, we are in the world of "becoming" which by default is always in some way "suffering" as it is a world of dissatisfaction, or lack, or "what we do not have presently and fades away", a world of "vanity", and all such notions. — schopenhauer1
However, though I am glad to discuss these notions, it is tangential to the argument itself which doesn't need the world to have any inherent value per se. Rather, as long as there is suffering (in any sense of that word), and the decision is there, that the moral weight is to prevent suffering more than any other one, including promoting (what one believes to be) good experiences for a person. — schopenhauer1
It creates a baseline set of boundaries, as what people can end up doing is any such harm to a person and justify it in the name of X positive value that they think will result. Rather, if people have inherent dignity and worth, that respect for this boundary would seem to be necessary, otherwise people are perpetual pawns that are to be treated as such. — schopenhauer1
That is to say, I believe it to be the case that it is empirically evident that life has X amount of suffering. Charmed lives don't exist, except in perhaps imagination or thought experiments. — schopenhauer1
To conflate the situation where the child does not have to experience suffering with the situation where the child does not have to experience suffering because there is no existing child to suffer is part of the problematic equivocation. You are not merely proposing removing suffering from a child, you are proposing removing the existence of the child as a means to avoiding that suffering. — Leontiskos
If suffering is the real problem, and life has no intrinsic value, then if Thanos can remove suffering by removing life—without causing suffering in the process—then on your principles he should do so. You relegated consent to a caveat, <1. Do not cause suffering, absent consent>. Because Thanos is not causing suffering consent cannot be relevant. If you reject the Thanos comparison then consent must play a more central role than your defensive argument permits. — Leontiskos
Coming at this from a different angle, if Thanos attempted to obtain consent before snapping each individual out of existence, do you think this attempt would be rationally sound? Does it follow from your argument that consensual euthanization of the entire race is the ideal and rational solution? — Leontiskos
So again, your argument here is bound up with the claim that the world has inherent negative value. More precisely, it is bound up with the claim that human existence has negative value (i.e. is evil). This is in no way tangential. If we remove that premise then your argument disintegrates, does it not? — Leontiskos
It's not at all clear to me that your position is the one that favors inherent dignity and worth. To nix life on account of suffering seems to be contrary to notions of inherent dignity. If humans have inherent dignity, then they have it regardless of negative attributes or accidents such as suffering, disability, etc. That is basically the heart of what we mean by dignity, "Even in spite of your inadequacies, your life still has intrinsic value." Suffering is merely one form of inadequacy. — Leontiskos
. . . There is the danger here of an argument which proves far too much. Imagine a world where every person suffers a pinprick but no more, and the remainder of their life is pure happiness. Why wouldn't your or Benatar's argument also prohibit procreation in this world? The pinprick of suffering seems to fuel your arguments just as well as extreme suffering. Benatar's asymmetry holds just as well in that case. — Leontiskos
The state of affairs does not exist yet, however. You can always say, "How can you prevent a state of affairs that is not existent! That situation has not come about yet.. In fact, we don't even KNOW which person might be harmed by the situation, but we know that in all likelihood, a person WILL be harmed, if YOU (the person who is doing the action) does X". — schopenhauer1
When thinking ahead for the unborn-yet-to-be-procreated persons, the potential ones antinatalism is trying be ethical toward, couldn’t we just as easily instead think of those unborn persons and make the rule “one cannot deprive someone of happiness without their consent.” — Fire Ologist
If that is our new rule, it becomes ethical to ask everyone to procreate as much as possible. Which would also be absurd as it would tend to deprive everyone of happiness if everyone was cranking out and trying to manage babies all of the time. — Fire Ologist
This highlights something else. There is not really any duty one way or the other to non-existing potential people. Antinatalism is good for potential people who will by design never exist. Ethics arises between two existing, actualized people. We can act today thinking of its impact on future people, but until those future people are actual, our present actions can’t be seen as ethical, or not ethical. The ethics of the actions only arises where the people arise, actually. — Fire Ologist
Let me walk you through some situations. Will you grant me that instead of an existing "person", I can instead use an existing "state of affairs"?
If you allow me that, we can use the following analogy...
There is a state of affairs whereby I can put someone in harms way by X action (it need not be procreation).
The state of affairs does not exist yet, however. You can always say, "How can you prevent a state of affairs that is not existent! That situation has not come about yet.. In fact, we don't even KNOW which person might be harmed by the situation, but we know that in all likelihood, a person WILL be harmed, if YOU (the person who is doing the action) does X".
In this state of affairs scenario, it is doubtful you will find this thinking absurd. That is to say, just because there isn't a particular person that this state of affairs will affect, doesn't mean we are not incumbent to prevent the situation. All the more so, the more important the harm that will occur, that it can be prevented reasonably easily, etc. etc. So no, I don't see this situation applying. — schopenhauer1
Also highlighted and not addressed in antinatalism, the world isn’t just suffering, or even enough suffering to contemplate a need to end all human beings. It’s just not compelling. — Fire Ologist
We don’t need to solve the problem of any suffering. We will want to solve the problem of the individual actual person who is actually suffering greatly. But because of that person’s existence, and because other people experience happiness at times, we don’t need to end all people. — Fire Ologist
in matters of ethics, preventing suffering is weighted more important — schopenhauer1
If you allow me that, we can use the following analogy...
There is a state of affairs whereby I can put someone in harms way by X action (it need not be procreation). — schopenhauer1
How is it not compelling to prevent suffering when one can? — schopenhauer1
You don't CREATE the situation of palliative ethics by bypassing the preventative part. I don't CREATE your suffering so that I can help you fix it. — schopenhauer1
1. There is no ethical way to treat non-existing people, — Fire Ologist
Suffering is not enough a reason to eliminate all humanity. — Fire Ologist
Antinatalism is not directed at preventing suffering, as it prevents everything. — Fire Ologist
-------------------The suffering in the world still isn’t enough to justify ending the world. — Fire Ologist
It is wishful thinking to prevent potential suffering in non-existing beings. — Fire Ologist
The vast majority would rather live this life than no life at all. — Fire Ologist
Antinatalism isn’t tailored to the specific problem it is trying to prevent, and is way overboard of a response to just suffering. — Fire Ologist
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