I think antinatalism is inherently bound up with Gnosticism. This is because it opposes the natural order, and to oppose the natural order requires appealing to some vantage point outside of the natural order. “You shouldn't procreate because the world is evil, addled by suffering.” But how do we know that the world or nature is evil? Surely nature did not tell us such a thing, nor cognitive faculties formed by nature. So then how would we know that it is evil? As the Gnostic says, it must be knowledge received from some god who is opposed to the god of this world (and the nature of the world it created). So again, antinatalism is theological in the sense that it presupposes nature-transcending knowledge.

For example, given that Benatar’s argument opposes the natural order, it cannot have been derived from the natural order. So if Benatar really thinks his argument holds good, then he must hold that his own mind and the knowledge it has come to know is super-natural, transcending nature. If we are limited to nature then we cannot contradict nature. Where does such a mind or such knowledge come from, if not from nature? Either the Gnostics are correct and it comes from the true god, or Christians are correct and it comes from demons. Or else it is just hopelessly mistaken and a product of merely human irrationality.

No, not really. When you create a fantasy world and that changes the very terms of how existence works, I don't see that as proving anything. What if gravity didn't exist? How would that change ethics? What if time and space could be changed so that we can redo actions? Again, none of this is this world. We can argue facts, but then at least we are arguing what is the case, and not hypotheticals that change how ethics would work because circumstances of the very conditions for ethics have changed. — schopenhauer1

Er, I think antinatalism is dead in the water due to this argument:

• Procreation is permissible in an all but perfect world
• Benatar's argument excludes procreation even in an all but perfect world
• Therefore, Benatar's argument is unsound

What is your counter supposed to be? "No, because counterfactual analyses aren't allowed"? I would suggest reading about the fallacy of "proving too much." Benatar's argument cannot account for the fact that procreation is obviously permissible in an all but perfect world. Benatar would not allow procreation before removing that pinprick. That's crazy. Benatar is irrationally opposed to life, and he would be irrationally opposed to life even in the best of circumstances. Indeed, his irrational argument opposes life even in the best of circumstances!

To be completely honest, I think your line of reasoning entails that one should pull the lever. — Bob Ross

Yes - I’ve changed my mind regarding the trolley case. I now hold that pulling the lever is permissible if the conditions of double effect are being adhered to.

The reason I am wary of the trolley case is because when a modern mind asks if it is permissible to pull the lever, they are almost certainly asking whether it is permissible to do evil that good may came; they are almost certainly attempting to justify consequentialism. So in this sense I think @Fire Ologist is correct when he says that the problem unduly prescinds from questions of intention. Only if one is not intending to kill the person (and one is not willing their death as a means to the end) can one pull the lever.

Correct. I am assuming you disagree: the fact they are swerving to avoid other people, although they are still intending to run over other people to save them, seems to be the relevant difference for you that makes it (presumably) morally omissible. — Bob Ross

Okay.

Yes, if by “he cannot avoid causing deaths” you mean his actions. If he has to either (1) kill 2 innocent people or (2) 4 innocent people; then I agree he should go with 1. But that is not the situation the pilot is in in your hypothetical. — Bob Ross

It seems like he is in that hypothetical. You are positing a significant difference between steering away from a large group of people and killing others as a side-effect, and ceasing to the fly the plane and killing others as a side-effect. When the pilot decides to cease flying the plane he knows the death of innocents will result, and therefore on your definition the advice you give is also intentional killing (i.e. the advice to cease flying the plane).

I guess. I would say that the duty to fly the aircraft safely is a duty which does not obligate one to commit anything immoral for its own sake; whereas it seems like you may think that it might. — Bob Ross

This is instructive because you speak about "committing an immoral act for its own sake." This is obviously not what is happening any any of the scenarios. Not even someone who does evil for the sake of a good end is committing immorality for its own sake. :chin:

How? Both situations have a person who knows they have to sacrifice someone to save someone else, and they act upon it. To me that is a sufficient condition to say they intended to do it. — Bob Ross

They don't intend to do it in different ways? Again, on your principles to cease flying the plane is to intentionally kill.

Much of this comes back to the first sentence of Aquinas' response:

I answer that, Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention. . . — Aquinas, ST II-II.64.7: Whether it is lawful to kill a man in self-defense?

You are denying this principle insofar as you are saying that everything which is foreseen is intended. Or more precisely, every effect which is foreseen to be necessary is intended.

What is your analysis of intent? What does it mean to intend something?

I think the difference you are talking about is merely that it seems like the person in the shoulder example is intending to save the pedestrians and the person on the shoulder is just an unfortunate side-effect; whereas the two in the transplant are definitely not a side-effect. — Bob Ross

Right: because in the first case the bad effect is not a means to the good effect, but in the latter case it is. Thus the transplant is not permissible on double effect.

For example, if I see someone in need of water (as perhaps they are thirsty) (let’s call them the first person) and I see someone else with water (let’s call them the second person) and I walk over to the second person and take their water to give it to the first person, then I am intending to take the water from the second person to give it to the first person even if my self-explicated intention is to get the first person water. — Bob Ross

This is another case where the bad effect is a means to the good effect, and is therefore not permissible on double effect. In order to give the first person water I must steal from the second person. Contrariwise, if there were one drink of water and two persons dying of thirst, I could give it to the first person even though I knew that the second person would die of thirst, because the bad effect (of their dying) is not a means to the good effect (of the other person drinking). The bad effect is not necessary in order to bring about the good effect; it is a side effect.

You are saying, by analogy here, that if the person is just intending to help the first person in need, and isn’t executing consciously a plan to take it from the second person, that the taking of the water of the second person is merely a side-effect of the intention. — Bob Ross

In order to give the first person water I must obtain water. In order to obtain water in your scenario it must be stolen from the second person. So what is happening is that I am stealing water in order to obtain water in order to give water to a thirsty person. The bad effect is a means to the good effect, and is therefore impermissible. Without the bad effect there would be no water for the thirsty person; just as without their deaths there would be no organs to transplant.

The difference between the transplant and the shoulder example, is merely that in the former the person is consciously aware that they are using people as a means. The latter example is iffy: someone may realize they have to kill the shoulder person to save the other people and continue anyways (thereby making it a conscious intention of theirs) whereas another person may not realize it and only think to themselves that they are saving the pedestrians. — Bob Ross

Suppose an act has two effects: I press the accelerator and two things happen: my speed accelerates and my fuel is consumed. Do you think Aquinas is right, and it is possible to intend one effect without the other? When I press the accelerator do I intend to accelerate and do I intend to diminish my fuel? And even if so, do I intend them in the same way? Is the word "intend" being used in the same way for both of these effects?

I am seriously struggling to see how the police officer would not communicate in their report, just based off of your statement to them here, that you intended to kill the guy on the shoulder to avoid hitting the two on the median; and this is essential to your argument that you provide a basis against this. — Bob Ross

I brought up murder because it is obvious that this person would not be convicted of murder. They may be convicted of manslaughter, but not murder. At the very least your analysis doesn't sync with our law system. It follows from this that the police officer would not write that I intended to kill the guy on the shoulder. Police officers and judges accept that side effects exist, and that not everything foreseen is intended.

So, this just boils down to the hierarchy of moral values. I think that rights are more fundamental than social duties (like flying airplanes, driving buses, etc.): the latter assumes the duty to protect and are birthed out of the former, so the former must be more fundamental. — Bob Ross

But this doesn't answer the question. If I have a duty to not-kill one person, then why don't I have a double duty to not-kill two persons? At stake are two duties.

Makes it unique, but not out of kilter. — schopenhauer1

Here is a logical presentation of the greenlight/prohibition distinction, which I tried to add in an edit but apparently did not get added:

You are committing the fallacy of denying the antecedent: <If you do X, then you are acting immorally; he did not do X, therefore he is acting morally>, where X = treating another as a mere means. It does not follow that my action is moral or permissible just because it does not treat another as a mere means.

Oh it wouldn't be the first time ;). And it wouldn't surprise me that my memories are off -- I through this in the lounge for that reason. I didn't feel like doing the deep work :D -- but I wanted to think through the ethics a bit. — Moliere

Okay. :up:

My memory on that claim is that it was with respect to masturbation, which always made me kind of shrug at that claim -- though, yes, that definitely fits with his Christian heritage. It may be here that this is what previously was raising feathers : I can acknowledge the Christian heritage, but at what point are we talking about Kant, the man, and Kant's philosophy, as intended, and Kant's philosophy, as written.

That was one of his examples I always sort of put to the side as worthless, though I could see the case being made for, say, substance abuse -- I don't think that's respecting yourself as an end (not sure if it would be a universalizable maxim, that one) — Moliere

Er, I think it's much more than a one-off. Examples include masturbation, suicide, treatment of animals, and self-mutilation, but the deeper point is that an ends-maker is not necessarily an end in themselves. This is actually a big problem in our culture as far as I'm concerned: autonomy is maximized and dignity (of oneself or others) is minimized. There is no reason why I must treat an ends-maker as an end in themselves, as these are two distinct concepts. I think our motivation to do so has more to do with modern political philosophy than morality or Kant.

Though respecting someone as an ends-maker wouldn't entail, I don't think, that autonomy makes right or something -- rather, it is right to respect autonomy. — Moliere

Why is it right to respect autonomy?

Again, if I treat someone as a mere means then I am not respecting their autonomy, but if I fail to respect their autonomy it does not follow that I am treating them as a mere means (or that I am failing to treat them as an end in themselves). Perhaps more crucially, by respecting someone's autonomy it does not follow that I am treating them as an end in themselves. It only follows that I am not using them as a mere means. Libertarian indifference to others is a good example of this sort of thing.

And that's where it gets hard to really apply the ethic to others. How can you reflect for someone else whether they are following a maxim? — Moliere

By considering the consistency of their actions.

One thing I don't think the ethic handles well is disparity in power. Kant doesn't really talk about children at all -- are they born with the categories? Do the categories become more apparent as they develop? When are they rational beings? — Moliere

True.

The list of negatives is drawn up by his reading of Plato. What comprises what is "firmly rejected in the
dialogues either explicitly or implicitly", is a matter of contention, especially the "implicit" part. — Paine

I think Gerson is on the right track, so I probably see it as less controversial than you do.

Relegating differences between thinkers as participants in the proposed larger container of agreement to a secondary concern removes any of the testimony of others to be possible challenges to the existence of said container. — Paine

First I would say that Gerson's thesis does not preclude challenges to this thesis. You yourself tend to offer these challenges. Second, to apply a particular lens to philosophical taxonomy does not prevent us from applying other lenses. I don't see Gerson's lens as exclusive.

The thesis was developed as a response to modern expressions of "anti-Platonism" and modern views of nature. As a philosophy of history, it is claiming that the conditions Plato emerged from are the same as those we live in. This battle between the two Titans seems to take place outside of History, in some kind of eternal now. — Paine

Yes, perhaps.

The thesis certainly does not help illuminate how Plotinus emerged in his time. — Paine

I don't know a lot about Plotinus, but I suspect you are correct.

Several conditions pop out immediately from these accounts.
The experience of a body is different from 'matter as itself' and so belongs within the 'intelligible realm'. That could be expressed, as you said, as "formal principle(s) clearly seen to overpower the material principle(s) but the more consequential difference is that the composition of a particular individual, joining υ̋λη and μορΦή, no longer represents a unity standing as the whole being from which to ascertain its parts.

I will stop here before saying more. — Paine

Okay, I can see your point. There is here a very strong opposition from Plotinus to Aristotle's "hylemorphism."

I am going to come back and make a full response when I have more time, but let me respond to this one thing quickly:

I am seriously struggling to see how the police officer would not communicate in their report, just based off of your statement to them here, that you intended to kill the guy on the shoulder to avoid hitting the two on the median; and this is essential to your argument that you provide a basis against this.

[...]

If they know that swerving will most certainly (or as a probabilistic certainty) will kill those two people and they continue with their plan of swerving, then they thereby intend to kill those two people to save the other people. I am tying the sufficient knowledge the person has, to what they intend to do. I think this is pretty standard practice in law. — Bob Ross

According to what you say here the driver should be convicted for murder, no? You seem to think he murdered the pedestrian on the shoulder.

And if you say, it is, but they are not merely using someone, how is that not a slippery slope? — schopenhauer1

Because it does not justify acts. Kant is not greenlighting, he is prohibiting. You've missed this point two times now.

That is to say, to create someone who will suffer unnecessarily is to use them as a means for something other than the person. As the person wasn't even there to begin with. — schopenhauer1

But this is the metabasis, which you appeal to when it suits your argument and ignore when it cuts against it. The fact that "the person wasn't even there to begin with" is what makes the whole antinatalist project so logically out of kilter.

---

That, however, is a far cry from having children at all schopenhauer1 -- I think utilitarianism, and psychological hedonism would be better friends to you than deontology, at least if you want to universalize anti-natalism (I did admit some conditions where I could, and even in my own life I can see, where having children isn't a good choice -- but the universal program is a bit much for me) — Moliere

I agree.

Seems a bit goofy to me. — Moliere

It is goofy, and @schopenhauer1 is ignoring arguments in the antinatalism thread whilst arguing antinatalism in a thread on Kant. For example, his reasoning results in absurd consequences:

The problem occurs if this is a valid argument:

1. Suppose every living human being is guaranteed a pinprick of pain followed by 80 years of pure happiness.
2. [Insert Benatar's antinatalist argument here]
3. Therefore, we should never procreate

Are you starting to see the reductio? The reductio has force because we know that any (2) that can get you from (1) to (3) is faulty argumentation. — Leontiskos

Nothing super direct comes to mind, other than "treating them as an end unto themselves" and noting how individual freedom is central -- as in a category of reason -- for moral thinking in Kant.

Since I can choose my ends, I have to recognize that others can do so as well.

Also, something Rawls points out, deontology is a literal lack of a goal: so to treat someone so that they fulfill a goal would be to violate them. — Moliere

Okay, then I am more comfortable in my claim that you are misinterpreting Kant. From my edit:

For Kant you cannot use someone as a mere means even if they consent to being used as a mere means. — Leontiskos

As far as I recall, Kant follows Christianity in claiming that one can fail to treat oneself as an end in oneself, and this would seem to undo the autonomy thesis. If it were just a matter of autonomy then treating oneself poorly would be impossible.

-

The key here is that it is not legitimate to reduce "treat them as an end in themselves" to "treat them as an ends-maker." Those are not the same thing for Kant. The latter does not exhaust the former. Just because we are treating someone as an ends-maker does not mean that we are treating them as an end in themselves. The specific emphasis on autonomy and ends-making comes later, and I would argue that if taken too far is a strong deviation from Kant.

(Hence, in the arranged marriage, the parents are failing to treat the betrothed as ends-makers, but they are not necessarily failing to treat them as ends in themselves.)

One thing that bothers me about the Ur-Platonism idea, apart from the specific issues being discussed, is that there have been centuries of thinkers who have self-identified with belonging or not belonging to particular groups and here comes this bloke telling you where you belong.

I accept that there is a lot of nuances in how that gets expressed. When Aristotle refers to the 'Platonists', he may be that and something else at the same time.

It is tyrannical to have them all wearing the same neckerchief. — Paine

Sorry, I know I need to respond to your post in the Metaphysics thread, but Gerson is dividing philosophers into two camps. It is legitimate to ask questions about the rationale and rigor of that division, but certainly when Aristotle speaks about "Platonists" and Gerson speaks about "Platonists" they are speaking about two different things. For Aristotle Platonists are one camp among many; for Gerson they are one camp among two. I don't think equivocation is occurring given the way Gerson sets out his thesis.

- Well this is very similar to @schopenhauer1's ideas. I would say that if someone is being treated as a mere means then their autonomy is not being respected; but it does not follow that if someone's autonomy is not being respected then they are being treated as a mere means. Autonomy and consent do not exhaust the notion of "an end in themselves."

For example, the arranged marriage infringes autonomy but does not necessarily result in the case of a mere means. I assume that Kant's "means to an end" is a means to my (selfish) ends. So if I give someone an apple am I treating them as a means? Well, if they are a slave and the apple is merely meant to nourish them to better serve me, then yes. But if the apple is intended for their own intrinsic good, then no. I don't have to ask them if they desire nourishment before I can legitimately give the apple. As long as I think it will serve them in themselves apart from any motive on my part, it is not treating them as a mere means.

Even if they would, in fact, be better, we wouldn't be respecting them as end-makers... — Moliere

I have all along been uncomfortable with this language of "respecting them as ends-makers," because this is a reduction of the second formulation to autonomy. Obviously that is part of the second formulation, but I want to say that it is not the entirety of it. If it were entirely a matter of respecting them as ends-makers then I really would have to place their autonomy on a very high pedestal. This would be a rather significant, albeit interesting, deviation from Christianity. Is there textual warrant in Kant that the second formulation should be interpreted this way?

For Kant you cannot use someone as a mere means even if they consent to being used as a mere means. — Leontiskos

As far as I recall, Kant follows Christianity in claiming that one can fail to treat oneself as an end in oneself, and this would seem to undo the autonomy thesis. If it were just a matter of autonomy then treating oneself poorly would be impossible.

Well, I'd say so, yeah. I don't believe in arranged marriages or pre-destined roles for children, because I believe autonomy is more important than that. — Moliere

But I think we are talking about the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative, not autonomy. I grant that an arranged marriage infringes autonomy.

Added in an edit:

The difficulty is that the second formulation pertains to intention, and material acts only rarely have necessarily intentional implications of the kind that Kant is thinking of. — Leontiskos

I'd say that this society violates the second formulation while maintaining the first: it's consistent, they continue on, and yet by relegating people before they are born to certain hierarchies -- even though everyone is happy -- it does not respect the humanity of people. — Moliere

If you think it violates the second formulation, then who is being treated as a mere means? I don't quite see it, and I am thinking of the analogous situation of an arranged marriage. If parents arrange a marriage for their child, or if someone pre-selects an infant for a hierarchical role, does it follow that they are being treated as a mere means?

The difficulty is that the second formulation pertains to intention, and material acts only rarely have necessarily intentional implications of the kind that Kant is thinking of.

No. Both Plato and Aristotle write in ways intended to mitigate the problem of writing. Both have a salutary public teaching. — Fooloso4

Well the way you have been wielding Plato's seventh letter makes it seem like Plato can have no public teaching.

Let me clarify, as I may have said differently before: the pilot wouldn’t let go of the steering wheel but, rather, would keep flying as best they can to avoid any collisions. — Bob Ross

Does the pilot have "a separate but related duty to cause as few deaths as possible in the event where he cannot avoid causing deaths"? ()

A duty towards something cannot excuse a person from their other duties. A pilot’s duty to fly cannot excuse them from their duty to not intentionally kill innocent people. — Bob Ross

So I am wondering if they have a second duty at all. If they do then we have a case of what is sometimes called moral perplexity, where two duties come into conflict.

Maybe I misunderstood, then. Were you positing that I could either (1) continue and run over 4 people or (2) swerve and hit 2 of those 4 instead of all 4? Or were you positing that I could either (1) continue and hit 4 people or (2) swerve and hit 2 separate (to the 4) people? — Bob Ross

I was thinking of the former. Presumably you are saying that the relevant difference between the airplane and car scenarios is that in the car scenario all of the potential victims were initially in the path of the vehicle?

Correct. The practical one was just an additional FYI; and not an intended answer to your question. The theoretical one is my answer. — Bob Ross

Okay, sounds good.

See, this is where it gets interesting; because, to me, this is a cop-out: it is a consequentialism-denier coming up with a way to be a consequentialist on some issues. — Bob Ross

Well, the second condition is a consequentialist condition. I admitted that, but it is not a sufficient condition (and that is what we mean by consequentialism tout court).

If one swerves to the left to hit 2 people to avoid hitting 4, then they have absolutely intended to sacrifice those 2 people to save the 4 and, consequently, used those 2 as a mere means toward a good end. Am I missing something? — Bob Ross

If two people are dying of heart failure and two others are dying of liver failure, and I kill the former two, take their livers, and give the latter two liver transplants, then I have sacrificed two to save two. It's not at all clear that the same thing is happening in the car scenario.

Indeed, it is not clear that they are a means to an end at all, much less a "mere means." Perhaps when I see people in front of my car on the median I have a rule to swerve into the ditch. My swerving is a means to the end of not-hitting the pedestrians on the median. If someone is on the shoulder, and I hit them, and I knew I was going to hit them, it does not follow that hitting them was a means to avoiding the others. The circumstances here are very different from the transplant case. In the transplant case two literally need to die in order to save the four. How do you differentiate these two cases?

A police officer might investigate and ask my why I swerved. I might say, "I swerved to hit the guy on the shoulder, because I knew that if I could hit that guy on the shoulder then I would be able to avoid the two on the median." Or else I might say, "I swerved to avoid the two on the median. I didn't want to hit the guy on the shoulder, but I couldn't find a way around him." Are these legitimately different answers?

This seems to sidestep the issue: to justify this “Double Effect”, you would have to sufficiently demonstrate that swerving to hit 2 people instead of 4 is not an intention to hit those 2 people to save the 4...what say you? Your analysis in the above quote just assumes it is merely an evil effect, without commenting on the intention. — Bob Ross

No, not really. I could turn this around at you and say, "To deny 'Double Effect,' you would have to sufficiently demonstrate that swerving to hit two people instead of four is based on the intention to hit those two people to save the four. What say you?" I am not saying that there is no possible case where someone would act with a bad intention (and Aquinas says this explicitly, if you recall), but rather that a bad intention is not necessary. On the other hand, if double effect is wrong then you would be required to show that the bad intention is necessary.

The key in these scenarios is that there are two acts (or two sub-acts, depending on how you parse it). The first is the act "to cause the death of innocents," and the second is the "choice over how many innocents die" (). The plane/car will cause the death of innocents no matter what, and therefore the first act is inevitable, and one is not responsible for the inevitable. But the second act is not inevitable: more or less people could die, and here the second duty comes in.

(Again, I have no idea how I would square my own reasoning with the trolley :lol: )

The pilot would be without moral fault in both; because one cannot blame a person for not fulfilling their duty to A because the only way to do so would have been to violate a more important duty to B. — Bob Ross

Why is B a more important duty?

Are you claiming that Aristotle made public what Plato intended to keep private? — Fooloso4

Are you claiming that Plato did not intend to make anything whatsoever public? That approach succeeds in nixing the OP, but it proves far too much.

- Yes, interesting points. :up:

I don't really disagree with any of that, but I think it often gets taken in problematic directions. I have been reading John Deely's book on Heidegger, which has been helping to refresh me on his ideas.

For me the dangers of Heidegger are similar to the dangers of mysticism (and I don't use that word pejoratively). It constitutes something powerful but unstable and even destabilizing, and therefore it can move in really any direction at all (including, for example, Nazism). Heidegger would no doubt take this as a compliment, but it's not all to the good. I'd say religious or tradition contexts have a better chance at harnessing that mystical nucleus and creating safeguards to its instability. The common person is not well served by that kind of thinking or that level of instability, and therefore there needs to be a complex mechanism of mediation. To take an example: the hermitage is in the monastery, and the monastery is in the unpopulated rural area. The common person lives in the city. They visit the monastery but then go back home. They may never see the hermitage. Both are necessary and there is a symbiotic relationship, but to take the city-dweller and place them in the hermitage for any extended period of time would literally overwhelm them, as would the city for the monk. Heidegger's thought is in many ways eremitical, simultaneously life-giving, dangerous, foreign, and dependent for stabilization (and meaning/contextualization) upon the common life.

- Right, and for that reason I don't think the explanation presented in your first sentence would even be possible. Given how much we agree on, I think my fart analogy is key.

Am I disrespecting the dignity of the native by asking for directions? — schopenhauer1

You are certainly using them as a means without their consent.

Again, I am allowing "merely" but if it is not being an excuse to actually violate dignity... — schopenhauer1

Again, the invalidity of your argument lies in confusing a prohibition with an allowance. Kant is saying, "You cannot use others as a mere means." This does not mean, "If you are not using others as a mere means, then whatever you are doing to them must necessarily be okay." It is logically impossible to use the second formulation as an excuse to act. The second formulation prohibits actions, it does not greenlight actions. I think you would see this more easily were not the planet of antinatalism exercising an undue gravitational pull on your thought.

I mean, Kant himself is highly controversial and I am trying to keep this at the level of Kant. Kant thought that lying is technically wrong no matter what, including about where your friend is when people are out to kill him, so if you think AN is controversial... — schopenhauer1

But Kant's position on lying follows even from the "merely." When you call into question the legitimacy of the "merely" you do not soften the prohibition on lying, you significantly strengthen it. So if you think Kant's position on lying is incorrect, then a position which calls "merely" into question would be all the more incorrect.

Your post began by saying that the quote from the Seventh Letter was: — Fooloso4

No, it began by saying that your interpretation of the letter was such.

How do you understand this if it does not mean what he said in the letter? — Fooloso4

The letter does not say that Plato holds no positions, or that none of his positions are inferable from his texts, or that none of his positions are inferable from Aristotle's texts.

Of course he could. He was responding to what was said in the dialogues. — Fooloso4

I already addressed this in the parenthetical remark at the end of that paragraph.

I responded that “mere” should not be an excuse to cause harm, by use of it as justification to do so. — schopenhauer1

I don't think Kant, Moliere, or Moliere's Kant hold that "mere" can be an excuse to cause harm. No one holds that position. Your arguments here seem too bent on justifying antinatalism, and for that reason they are deviating from the topic of Kant. If we must remove the "mere" then we cannot buy from the shopkeeper, and that's crazy. The claim that such a purchase is an "excuse to cause harm," is highly implausible, even though an antinatalist might make that argument. At the very least it is an undue imputation of motive. (And if you insist on the idea that the shopkeeper consents, then consider the tourist who asks a native for directions. It's not as though every time we "burden" someone consent is involved.)

The key problem with your reliance on consent is that it is moot for Kant. For Kant you cannot use someone as a mere means even if they consent to being used as a mere means. Consent is irrelevant to the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative.

Your argument here is something like, "If Kant's second formulation of the c.i. permits pronatalism, then it is false." The first problem is that this is invalid: even if antinatalism were true there could still be true moral principles that do not prohibit procreation. Not every moral principle will justify every moral conclusion. The second problem is that this is more a dispute over antinatalism than a dispute over Kant. Your argument has no force for anyone who doesn't already agree with you on antinatalism, and antinatalism is a highly controversial thesis. As I said, we already have a thread on antinatalism.

- Sure, but we already have a thread on the topic of antinatalism, including a conversation ().

I think Kant is rightly interpreted as prohibiting using others as a mere means, and I think it is a social impossibility to try to remove that word, "mere." If we remove that word then we cannot buy goods from the shopkeeper at all.

This is not to say that science and logic deal only with secondary realities. — Joshs

The point is that science and logic are secondary realities.

That is , an aspect of what science does, the philosophical aspect that allows it to move from one scheme to alternative schemes , frees it from remaining stuck within any particular secondary logic. — Joshs

Science is more fundamental than scientific paradigms, but science is also secondary in itself. It presupposes things like sense data, an intelligible world, etc. It is a reorganization of what is pre-given in order to arrive at abstract knowledge.

Meanwhile, there are primary philosophical logics (Hegel’s dialectic, Husserl’s transcendental logic) that describe fundamental realities. — Joshs

They attempt to, but they always fall short. Hegel's dialectic is not reality, as much as he wants it to be.

I would say that the scientific approaches Hanover has in mind don’t destroy freedom in nature (quantum indeterminacy) , but question the coherence of certain unitary notions of the will. I would also question those unitary notions, preferring to see the will as a differential system. But unlike Hanover I don’t see this system as operating via the unfreedom of efficient causality. — Joshs

Yes, but my point was an analogy. To explain free will by efficient causality is like trying to explain numbers by addition. Our knowledge of efficient causality depends on reason and free will, and therefore it makes no sense to try to explain free will by efficient causality. There is always vicious circularity involved in such an attempt. See:

I think we can take it as a rule that that thing which nothing makes sense without, is never susceptible to "deep analysis." This is because analysis is an act of dividing or reducing, and the most fundamental and essential realities are always indivisible or irreducible. The Atomists say that nothing makes sense without atoms, but they do not complain that atoms cannot be further analyzed; they recognize it as an irresistible conclusion. The spat between the idealists and the materialists is a spat premised upon the search for a unified theory, where there is only one irreducible reality. — Leontiskos

So when says that "nothing makes sense" without free will, it does not make sense for him to go on as if free will is a secondary reality, reducible to random or deterministic events. If free will were reducible to such events then not only would things make sense without it; but everything could be fully explained without it. If free will were just the result of random and deterministic events then it wouldn't even exist (except in perhaps an illusory manner), and of course everything still makes sense without a non-existent thing.

- I think that is right. :up:

- No, it's a good point, and I think Kant got lying right. Trust is incredibly important to the existence of society. It's no wonder ours is collapsing. :grimace:

It depends upon the purpose of punishment. If the purpose of the punishment is corrective or rehabilitative, punishment could be argued as appropriate. — Hanover

No: see: . If you are merely conditioning someone, then you are not punishing them. But as you yourself point out, the sentencing agent would still be undermined in the case of things like rehabilitation.

Nor do computers have any way to process data other than the way they do in fact process them. The sun rises and sets in a predictable pattern in a way that results in trees growing and insects flourishing. The fact that an intricate system can work and can result in complex ways doesn't implicate freedom. The honeybee can't make honey a different way. — Hanover

It is logically possible that the engineer could not have built the bridge in any other way, but also irrational. You say that free will is neither necessarily true or necessarily false, but then you go on to indulge in necessitarian arguments, and what in fact happened is that you gave an argument that free will necessarily cannot exist.

Maybe my theistic beliefs are wrong if I subjected them to strict logic. I'm not defending my faith. It might be stupid, but it is what it is. — Hanover

But are you really engaged in strict logic when you declare the axiom that everything must be either random or determined (or spontaneous)?

I suppose either determinism or indeterminism could be true, but neither allow a basis for placing responsibility on the agent. — Hanover

You very much avoided the question I asked. I'd say the uncontroversial answer is that it is more irrational to say that he could not have built the bridge any other way, albeit not logically impossible.

I do believe in personal responsibility. I told you that. — Hanover

Well, you also said you don't, here:

You couldn't have chosen anything other than you did if determinism is true. You could have done otherwise if determinism isn't true, but you wouldn't be responsible for a random or spontaneous event. And there are no other choices, despite you saying there are. That is, if determinism is true or if determinism is false, you are not responsible for what you do. — Hanover

That's an argument that personal responsibility cannot exist. Did you make it by accident?

If you posit free will as being a mystery, then you should be logically committed to the idea that the localization of that mystery will necessarily be vague (note too that a mystery could be defined as something which is not explicable in terms of your familiar categories: in your case randomness, spontaneity, and determinism). Likewise, when you fart we can't point to the fart in any exact way. It is diffuse, it spreads, it permeates. Only to the extent that we understand something perfectly can we identify and discern it perfectly.

Free will exercises influence on the world through free agents, and free agents exercise influence through rational deliberation, and rational deliberation results in the arts, sciences, technology, political arrangements, etc. It doesn't make a lot of sense to say that humans are free but reason is deterministic. That would be unduly localizing the "mystery," much like claiming to specify the exact location of your fart. If you think freedom is a mystery, then how are you so certain about where it begins and ends? If you think we are truly free, then don't you also think that that freedom exercises an influence on reality in one way or another? If so, then it makes no sense to hold that all of reality is perfectly deterministic, including reason and everything that follows from it. — Leontiskos

What I'm rejecting is that there are logical and scientific anchors for much of what we take for granted, including such things as free will, moral truths, or purpose generally. — Hanover

As I've said, fundamental realities cannot be explained by secondary realities. Numbers are not explained by addition, because addition presupposes numbers. That we think everything should be scientifically or "logically" analyzable is a symptom of our intellectual biases. Science and logic both presuppose free will, they don't explain it.

- That's fair, but I would still say that in each case social disintegration threatens on the heels of the "contradiction."

Be…..legal? An act that follows the moral law, is good, a tacit description representing the worthiness of being happy... — Mww

"The distinction between the doctrine of happiness and the doctrine of morality, in the former of which empirical principles constitute the entire foundation, while in the second they do not form the smallest part of it..." — Moliere

You seem to favor CpR, the philosophy concerning the empirical part of ethics, while I draw from Groundwork, which concerns the non-empirical parts, re: morality proper. — Mww

The Groundwork is just as clear that an act premised on happiness would not be moral.

It’s hard to figure out what rules would be necessary to universalize and what ones are not important enough for this universalization. — schopenhauer1

And regarding that earlier concept of communal self-interest the question arises of whether a failure to universalize results in a contradiction or whether it results in societal disintegration. For example:

If everyone follows the maxim "Do not lie" or "Always tell the truth", that would not lead to some contradiction in actions between the group of people who have adopted the maxim. — Moliere

...Moliere talks about a "contradiction in actions between the group of people," which is apparently social conflict.

Some argue that the Seventh Letter was not written by Plato. — Fooloso4

My point is that it does not entail what you say it does.

Make of this what you will. If you want to discover Plato's doctrines in what one or more of his characters say in the dialogues then such claims must be weighed against what is said and by whom in other places both within that dialogue and in other dialogues. — Fooloso4

It seems you missed the point of my post.

1. Did Plato and Aristotle argue?
2. Do we have a source for their disagreements in Aristotle's works?

If Plato held no knowable positions, then Aristotle could not have argued with Plato. But Aristotle did argue with Plato, and we have at least some of Aristotle's arguments for and against Plato. Therefore Plato held knowable positions (insofar as we accept Aristotle's depiction of Plato's thought).

To maintain your thesis would require upholding the idea that Aristotle was no more privy to Plato's thought than we are, which is false. Aristotle had access to Plato's person, not just his texts.

Sure, that's what I argue because my concern in court centers around exposing the philosophical implications of determinism upon free will as opposed to protecting my client's interests. It's always good to talk about what you feel like talking about as opposed to focusing on the task at hand. — Hanover

Er, the implication was that you were defending someone who pulled the trigger. That's why I wrote, "When you are defending someone accused of murder..." It's like you're not even reading my posts.

Anyway, to the extent this slippery slope actually does occur in court, a typical gap between the left and the right on personal responsibility does center around how much freedom, if any, someone has over their actions. — Hanover

Yes, but my point is that everyone agrees that if someone has no freedom over their action then they cannot be punished for that action, and you are leaning strongly in the direction which says that no one has any freedom over their actions.

And I'm saying you have no meaningful definition of freedom. — Hanover

Again:

"Nothing makes sense without free will and free will is logically incoherent upon deep analysis." Is this a substantial criticism? What does it even mean to give a "deep analysis"?

[...]

I think we can take it as a rule that that thing which nothing makes sense without, is never susceptible to "deep analysis." This is because analysis is an act of dividing or reducing, and the most fundamental and essential realities are always indivisible or irreducible. The Atomists say that nothing makes sense without atoms, but they do not complain that atoms cannot be further analyzed; they recognize it as an irresistible conclusion. The spat between the idealists and the materialists is a spat premised upon the search for a unified theory, where there is only one irreducible reality. — Leontiskos

You couldn't have chosen anything other than you did if determinism is true. You could have done otherwise if determinism isn't true, but you wouldn't be responsible for a random or spontaneous event. And there are no other choices, despite you saying there are. That is, if determinism is true or if determinism is false, you are not responsible for what you do. — Hanover

I am glad the dogmatism is becoming more brazen and visible. So it seems that you are committed to the very strange idea that engineers do not have it within their power to build bridges differently than they did in fact build them.

I do believe in choice. It's pragmatism. I don't think the world is decipherable without maintaining a superficial acceptance of freedom. — Hanover

So on your theory we can't decipher the world without accepting the existence of something that does not exist. For as you say above, we are not responsible for what we do.

It's superficial because upon analysis it fails. — Hanover

I asked above what you meant by "deep analysis" quite a few times but you always neglected to give any answer. I don't think you know what you mean, and therefore I don't think yours is a substantial critique.

I also subscribe to a certain theism that just decrees it. — Hanover

It decrees that there are other choices, even though you are adamant that "there are no other choices"? If there are no other choices then your theism is wrong, and to subscribe to it is to contradict yourself.

But I don't think any of the explanations provided show how it could possibly exist. — Hanover

More: according to what you say it couldn't possibly exist. You declared above, "If [(p v ~p)] then you are not responsible for what you do." This is nothing less than a claim that we are not responsible for what we do.

As I stated, your fallacy is special pleading. You have for no reason for saying that "reasons" are not causes other than so that you can treat them differently, but a reason is a cause. If I pull the trigger beCAUSE I hate the man, the reason is the cause. So, substitute the word "cause" in for "reason" in my above sentence and you'll understand how it's logically entailed. — Hanover

How many times do I have to tell you that "cause" does not mean "deterministic cause"? Those of us who believe in free will do not thereby believe that free agents are not causes of effects. (Else, find me one place where I have said that reason is not a cause.) As for the "special pleading," here is what I already said:

Is it more irrational for me to say that the engineer could have built the bridge differently, or is it more irrational for you to say that the engineer was determined to build the bridge according to blueprint 87?

That is, " if you claim he had no cause, then when he does something, he did it for no cause." — Hanover

I have never said that he had no cause, and this has been addressed already:

You are doing this very strange thing where every time I say, "X is caused by a free agent," you conclude, "Right, so X is uncaused!" This is a failure to understand even the basic contours of an agent-causal worldview. If—as you continue to implicitly assert—free agents do not exist, then you must reject the claim that "X is caused by a free agent." But what you ought to do is say that the claim is false, not that it means that X is uncaused. It manifestly does not mean that X is uncaused. — Leontiskos

The law reflects the beliefs of those who passed it, which means those who passed the laws likely believed in free will. That doesn't make free will the case. I can imagine there are countries that pass laws based upon all sorts of myths and religious beliefs I don't agree with, but I don't know what that adds to truth. — Hanover

Law in itself presupposes that humans are responsible actors. It is odd for a lawyer to engage in a practice that presupposes personal responsibility if they do not believe in personal responsibility.

I'm saying that free will is not provable and that it's incoherent under analysis. — Hanover

You're asserting that, yes. And you give some bad arguments, like the argument that <if an agent is not an event then he had no cause>. You haven't seemed to notice that you yourself are not event and you nevertheless had a cause.

I don't think free will is provable, but I don't think it is disprovable, and you don't seem to notice that your arguments would disprove it. More precisely, you think you have a good argument against moral responsibility:

You couldn't have chosen anything other than you did if determinism is true. You could have done otherwise if determinism isn't true, but you wouldn't be responsible for a random or spontaneous event. And there are no other choices, despite you saying there are. That is, if determinism is true or if determinism is false, you are not responsible for what you do. — Hanover

Or do you think that free will could still exist even though responsibility necessarily cannot?

In other words, according to Plato in the Seventh Letter there are no core doctrines or any doctrines at all in his writings that can rightly be attributed to him. — Fooloso4

That's a 21st century thesis in the sense that Plato and Aristotle died 2500 years ago and we can argue about their texts ad infinitum. The problem is that Aristotle was Plato's literal student. Aristotle knew Plato, Aristotle was taught by Plato, Aristotle and Plato inevitably argued with one another about things, and Aristotle continued to argue with Plato in his own writings. The claim that Plato held no doctrines or positions is almost certainly false (and the seventh letter certainly doesn't entail such a thing). The claim that in the 21st century we cannot discern any of Plato's doctrines or positions is arguable, but in my opinion also false. But crucially false is the claim that we cannot discern doctrinal differences between Plato and Aristotle from their writings, and especially from Aristotle's writings.

Random and spontaneous are not the same thing. We can say that quantum movement is random to the extent we can't predict it, but we don't go so far as to say it is uncaused. With spontaneity, you're talking about something just blipping into reality from nothingness.

So now it's a false trilemma I suppose. — Hanover

If you want to claim that you have given some sort of precise and uncontroversial definition of "spontaneous," then sure, we can call it a false trilemma. Either way you're not intersecting the points at hand.

What cannot be a false dilemma is the statement "Something is either caused or it is not caused." That statement encompasses every logical possibility.

So, when I choose to pull the trigger, that choice was either (a) caused or (b) not caused. If it was not caused, then I cannot be responsible for it because it occurred from nothing. If I'm walking about and then I pull a trigger with no preceeding cause initiating it, what did I do other than suddenly finding myself pulling a trigger. — Hanover

Is that what you do in court? When you are defending someone accused of murder do you say to the judge, "His choice to pull the trigger was either caused or uncaused. If it was uncaused then it's not his fault. If it was caused then it was the result of spontaneity or pool balls in his brain, and therefore also not his fault. Therefore in no case could the pulling of the trigger be his fault"? You are a lawyer, right?

This is just special pleading. You're trying to deny reasons are causes and then trying to claim that an event can occur without a cause because it was a reason, not a cause that brought it about. — Hanover

You're putting words in my mouth out of nowhere, again. Reason is an indeterminate cause which is neither determined, random, nor spontaneous. It is free, irreducible to these other options.

The person could have chosen 100 ways to build a bridge, but he chose Choice 87 and the reason he chose Choice 87 was because the various pool balls slamming together in his brain led him to Choice 87. How do you propose he chose Choice 87? — Hanover

If you think it was just the result of "pool balls slamming together in his brain," how do you propose he could have chosen anything else? Do you even believe in choice? Do you think we reason between multiple options? Is it more irrational for me to say that the engineer could have built the bridge differently, or is it more irrational for you to say that the engineer was determined to build the bridge according to blueprint 87? I think you are being led into absurdity here, namely by slowly committing yourself to the idea that reason and choice are illusory.

Assuming State of the Universe A, which includes every fact of the universe, will on some occasions in State A the actor choose Choice 87 and sometimes he choose Choice 88? If so, what varied that resulted in Choice 88? Was it an indeterminate force that offers a degree of randomness to the universe from time to time? If so, is that your Free Will Generator? If it is, how does that impose responsibility on the actor? — Hanover

You're still stuck in your false dichotomy. You are assuming that we cannot reason between different options, and that reason is both illusory and reducible to randomness or determinism.

Exactly. Everything is caused by something. That's what determinism is. — Hanover

This is the most common fallacy regarding determinism. Determinism does not mean that everything is caused by something. Determinism means that everything that happens happens necessarily, that all causes are event causes, and that the present is a necessary result of the past. You are equivocating on "caused" and "deterministically caused." Free agents are causes, but they are free, not determined.

You are doing this very strange thing where every time I say, "X is caused by a free agent," you conclude, "Right, so X is uncaused!" This is a failure to understand even the basic contours of an agent-causal worldview. If—as you continue to implicitly assert—free agents do not exist, then you must reject the claim that "X is caused by a free agent." But what you ought to do is say that the claim is false, not that it means that X is uncaused. It manifestly does not mean that X is uncaused.

All causes are events and all events are causes. An event is just the word we use to describe the cause that immediately followed a prior cause. — Hanover

Good. Now you are begging the central question explicitly. This is progress. Recall that I already predicted this:

So we're clearly not disagreeing on whether the event has a cause; you are merely asserting that an agent cannot be a cause of an event (and this begs the question I first raised). More precisely, you seem to be committed to the position that only events can cause events. Needless to say, an agent is not an event. — Leontiskos

Why in the world would we think that all causes are events? Beyond that, your definition of "event" is manifestly false. An event is not "just the word we use to describe the cause that immediately followed a prior cause." I think this is obvious, but I will give you a link to the dictionary.

If you claim an agent is not an event, you are claiming he had no cause... — Hanover

How does that follow!?

Are you an event? Did you have a cause?

and if you claim he had no cause, then when he does something, he did it for no reason. — Hanover

...and how does that follow!? :yikes:

These are just crazy inferences. What sort of principles are you working from? "If X is not an event then it had no cause"? "If X had no cause, then when it acts, it acts for no reason"? Your reasoning here is not only opaque, it is also dubious. It's not just that the things you are saying have no apparent rationale; but also that the things you are saying seem clearly false.

Why did the Agent pull the trigger? Your answer would have to be He pulled it beCAUSE of nothing. I'm not following why I should hold the Agent responsible for something from nothing. — Hanover

He pulled it because he reasoned that by killing the witness his crime would go unpunished, and he is on trial because reason is not deterministic (i.e. he could have reasoned differently and chosen a different course of action, both in committing the initial crime as well as in committing the murder coverup). Are you in the right profession?

This just shows that my occupation isn't causative of my beliefs in this instance, — Hanover

It might just show that you are engaged in a profession that you believe to be premised on false notions of moral responsibility, which is a kind of performative self-contradiction.

The only way out is to accept a pragmatism or just say there is free will and it's all magic. I'm good with either actually. — Hanover

If you posit free will as being a mystery, then you should be logically committed to the idea that the localization of that mystery will necessarily be vague (note too that a mystery could be defined as something which is not explicable in terms of your familiar categories: in your case randomness, spontaneity, and determinism). Likewise, when you fart we can't point to the fart in any exact way. It is diffuse, it spreads, it permeates. Only to the extent that we understand something perfectly can we identify and discern it perfectly.

Free will exercises influence on the world through free agents, and free agents exercise influence through rational deliberation, and rational deliberation results in the arts, sciences, technology, political arrangements, etc. It doesn't make a lot of sense to say that humans are free but reason is deterministic. That would be unduly localizing the "mystery," much like claiming to specify the exact location of your fart. If you think freedom is a mystery, then how are you so certain about where it begins and ends? If you think we are truly free, then don't you also think that that freedom exercises an influence on reality in one way or another? If so, then it makes no sense to hold that all of reality is perfectly deterministic, including reason and everything that follows from it.

To deny that free agents have any causal effect on the world is just to deny free will. It is farcical to claim that freedom exists and exercises no influence on the world whatsoever.

Edit: In a private conversation someone was trying to defend Dennett by defending a thesis that thoughts are causally impotent. This is how I responded:

The modern period becomes very focused on instrumental reason, and to say that we do not have thoughts would seem to imply that we are not able to affect the world in rational and intelligent ways. "If I press this gas pedal the car will accelerate." That is a thought that is true or false, and undergirding it is a great deal of engineering, which also presupposes true thoughts. The truth or falsity of the engineering thoughts will influence the truth or falsity of the acceleration thought. If thoughts had no causal efficacy, then they would play no part in the claim about the accelerator, but this is clearly false. Thus thoughts have causal efficacy. — Leontiskos

- Right, or simpler: for to claim that choice 87 was chosen "because [of] the various pool balls slamming together in his brain," is to claim that there was only one "choice" (and therefore there was no choice at all). If is right that "without [free will] nothing makes sense," then on his theory about "various pool ball," nothing makes sense. And it doesn't; it is completely contrary to sense to claim that we don't reason between multiple options.

Would you argue that we must divorce rational human creativity from the evolutionary engine of biological creativity? Is the freedom of human motive and thought completely absent from the rest of the living sphere, is it an emergent function, are there degrees of freedom at different levels of biological complexity? Or did a god gift humans with a freedom which he denied the rest of nature ( in which case we would exist apart from nature)? — Joshs

I think that, compared to the rest of the living sphere, there is a qualitative difference in human rationality and freedom, but that lower nature is present in the human being, and that lower nature can participate in substantially limited ways in rationality and freedom.

If blameful retributive justice is a function of a belief in the potential arbitrariness, randomness and capriciousness of motive, then what makes Cartesian desert-based approaches , which are assumed to arise from the deliberately willed actions of an autonomous, morally responsible subject, harsher and more ‘blameful' in their views of justice than deterministic , non-desert based modernist approaches and postmodern accounts, which rest on shaping influences (bodily-affective and social) outside of an agent's control? Aren't the latter accounts more ‘arbitrary' interpretations of behavior than the former? On the contrary, the very autonomy of the Cartesian subject presupposes a profound arbitrariness to free will. We say that the subject who has free will wills of their own accord, chooses what they want to choose , and as such has autonomy with respect to ‘foreign' social and internal bodily influences. The machinations of the free will amount to a self-enclosed system. — Joshs

I am not a Cartesian (in any intentional way). The reason we praise and blame human beings is because they act within a larger system. But the more fundamental fact is that, as Aquinas notes, praise and blame themselves presuppose freedom. I think the pejoratives such as "harsh" are just muddying the waters. If an act came from a person then they are responsible for that act. If it didn't then they aren't. There is nothing "harsh" about this logical fact. The notion of "harsh punishment" presupposes the whole system that Sapolski wishes to undermine, for it imputes blame to the judge who sentences the defendant. If the judge cannot be blamed then his sentence cannot be harsh. More fundamentally, it implies a disproportion between the punishment and the crime, which in turn implies the possibility of a proper proportion.

This solipsist self functions via an internal logic of values that, while rational within the internal bounds of its own subjectivity, is walled off from the wider community of selves and therefore can choose value in a profoundly irrational or immoral manner with respect to social consensus. Therefore, the very autonomy of the Cartesian subject presupposes a profound potential laxity and arbitrariness to individual free will in relation to the moral norms of a wider social community. — Joshs

If this extreme solipsism follows upon Cartesianism, then you are right. I think that sort of solipsism is obviously a problem to be avoided. I don't at all think it is inseparable from free will.

It’s not as if punitive justice is absent from Sapolski’s deterministic account. If human behavior is assumed to be the product of both biological and environmental conditioning influences, then it stands to reason that it is possible to rehabilitate and recondition a person who is exhibiting anti-social behavior. — Joshs

Rehabilitation and reconditioning are not punitive. C. S. Lewis' The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment is still quite relevant here.

No, because you don't need to view the world as evil for this argument, just that preventing suffering is a priority. — schopenhauer1

The argument holds that human life is evil (or bad) on account of suffering, and therefore we should not further human life by procreation. The proposition that <Life is evil> flows from your claim about suffering, but it still seems to me obvious that this is a crucial proposition in your argument, and that it is "theological."

So whilst I agree with what you have said there, the point is that paternalistically making a decision on behalf of someone to not prevent them from suffering, and thus basically forcing the conditions of suffering onto them, would not be respecting the dignity, as this becomes aggressive paternalism. — schopenhauer1

We force a decision upon them either way. I don't see how only one direction is paternalistic.

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. — schopenhauer1

The problem is that your argument is a form of metabasis, <We ought to prevent persons from suffering; preventing a person from existing will prevent their suffering; therefore we should prevent their existence>. I don't say that it is necessarily unsound, but it is not a clean syllogism. There is a quasi-equivocation on "persons."

Our obligation is to prevent the suffering of persons, not to prevent persons for the sake of suffering. Our primary suffering-obligation is to prevent existing persons from suffering. Additional argument is required to show that this means that we should prevent persons from existing. Your aversion to suffering is overwhelming, and out of sync with common intuitions. Common intuitions merely say that suffering should be mitigated, not expunged at all costs. ...but maybe I would be better off directly addressing Benatar's argument... (and I do so at the end)

In fact, I didn't even mention whether ONCE ALREADY EXISTING, non-existence is or is not considered a harm. You cannot put the genie back. — schopenhauer1

Why not? Does existence suddenly become a non-harm once someone is born? Is life bad before we are born and good after we are born? So that we must avoid it before we are born and embrace it after we are born?

Let's move to the consensual variant, which seems to me more fruitful:

Well, now you've changed it. If he asked, and everyone consented, ethically speaking, this isn't violating an ethic. Whether this is the right "solution", I don't know, because I don't believe already-existing to be symmetrical for never-existing. — schopenhauer1

Again, why are they not symmetrical? I am guessing that unhappy people correlate to antinatalism and happy people correlate to "pronatalism," because there is symmetricity. Again, the whole thing is based on the question of whether life is good or bad, and that determination should hold steady. So if you really think life is bad then you should think that other people should think that life is bad, and that other people should consent to painless euthanization. If euthanization is not the rational choice for living persons, then why would you promote antinatalism? (Note that when I talk about the "rational position," what I mean is that this is the choice that the rational person ought to freely choose for themselves.")

But once someone has X done upon them, if it means that they have abc experiences, and they value them, I see no need to get rid of them, unless indeed they thought they were were worthless. — schopenhauer1

If X doesn't want to be euthanized because they find life beautiful and valuable, then either they are irrational or else the antinatalism thesis suffers a blow. That person would literally resent your antinatalism, because it sought to "paternalistically" prevent their fulfilling life. These two realities are directly opposed. It is not faulty logic.

Rather, we are NOT LIVING for that value, but rather, preventing that negative state of affairs from befalling someone. — schopenhauer1

It seems to me like a rationalization of pusillanimity: fear of life for fear of suffering. The antinatalist would apparently counsel the unborn to opt out of life for fear of suffering.

Do you agree that, one way or another, we must make a choice for the unborn? That to give birth is to choose life for them, and that to abstain from procreation is to choose non-existence for them? (Really "them," as I am now swimming in the metabasis). I don't accept the purported neutrality of the antinatalist position, as if so-called "paternalism" is not inevitable.

My point was that empirically-speaking, in the real world, there are no such charmed lives, so it is de facto out of the question other than a thought experiment. Supposing only a pin-prick was the suffering, I guess the scenario could be reconsidered. — schopenhauer1

Reconsidered on what basis? I am offering a reductio, and if your argument succumbs then the argument itself is problematic, as it "proves too much."

So for example.. What if when you stab someone, they reanimate every time you do it instantly.. would that be wrong? — schopenhauer1

It wouldn't be wrong in the same way as it is now. But your theoretical does not function as a reductio to any argument that I have offered, and that is the primary difference.

Benatar thinks indeed, being that no one being deprived of this "almost charmed life", there is no foul. No person harmed, no foul. Rather, the violation still takes place in this scenario. — schopenhauer1

The problem occurs if this is a valid argument:

1. Suppose every living human being is guaranteed a pinprick of pain followed by 80 years of pure happiness.
2. [Insert Benatar's antinatalist argument here]
3. Therefore, we should never procreate

Are you starting to see the reductio? The reductio has force because we know that any (2) that can get you from (1) to (3) is faulty argumentation.

You seem to be talking about spontaneous events now. — Hanover

No, this conclusion is based on the false dichotomy that if an event isn't deterministic then it must be random/spontaneous. That is the false dilemma I addressed in my first post to you.

Why am I responsible for things that just happen without causes? — Hanover

What has happened without a cause? I literally just told you that, "If I say that a certain event is caused by an agent then that event has a cause, namely the agent. So we're clearly not disagreeing on whether the event has a cause..."

What causes him to create an event? — Hanover

So the formal cause of a deliberate choice is rationality and rational motives. Why does an engineer build a bridge one way and not another? Because he (freely) reasons that this is the best way to build a bridge in such-and-such a circumstance. But there are a thousand different ways to build a bridge, and he might have built it differently. He is doubtless aware of all sorts of different ways that he could have built it. The final blueprint (or bridge) is not accounted for by randomness/spontaneity or determinism, for randomness does not produce bridges, and determinism cannot make sense of the fact that he was able—though his rationality—to build the bridge in a thousand different ways.

You are asking a question like this, "What caused the agent's act? In your answer you are only allowed to appeal to events, random or deterministic." Your whole presupposition is to reduce agents to events, random or deterministic. My point from the start is that this whole presupposition is faulty. The constraints that you are placing on the answers to your questions are not rationally justifiable.

If everything is determined, then the question of what determines each prior event is the central question in the free will debate. — Hanover

If we say that everything is determined then the free will debate is already over.

The problem is how we define free will in a way that allows for us to be considered responsible for our actions. — Hanover

Okay, but that is a different question than the one which asks whether free will or determinism is true.

If our actions are caused by prior events and those events are pre-determined, probabilistically determined, randomly determined, or are spontaneously determined, none of those actions were within our control. — Hanover

I agree.

Self-determined is a meaningless concept. — Hanover

I disagree. As a lawyer I find it odd that you would say that agents cannot be self-moving.

This is like asking what caused the Big Bang to suddenly bang and then asking what came before it to make it bang. Except in the free will discussion, you seem to be positing a sudden Big Bang every time a decision is made and then attributing that bang to the banger and still being unable to answer the question of what came before the Bang. — Hanover

Nah, I think this is more question-begging of the false dilemma, but it is instructive that you here literally conflate an agent with an event (i.e. the Big Bang). Agents are not events. What is needed is a broader ontology, one which includes bona fide agents.

I thought you were inquiring into the question of how agents and events interact, or how freedom and causal realities interact. We don't have a perfect understanding of how they interact, but we have some very good approximations (represented, for example, by legal systems). We know that agents are responsible and that causal laws obtain. One can pit these two realities against one another under the assumption that one must swallow up the other (i.e. idealism vs materialism), but one could also note that agents make no sense without causal laws and causal laws make no sense without agents to know and witness them. It seems to me a matter of irreducible realities, not insoluble problems. The problem to which there is no solution is the problem of how to reduce one irreducible reality to another.

This just strikes me as a God question which is obviously unanswerable, as in where did God come from, and what was there before he was there, and how did he make something out of nothing? — Hanover

To ask about the cause of an agent's existence is different from asking about the cause of an agent's action. My mother caused me to exist, but she did not cause me to write this post.

But, like I said, I accept there is free will, but I take it as a given, without which nothing makes sense, not even the ability to reason and decide what to believe. I'm just willing to admit that the concept of free will in logically incoherent upon deep analysis. — Hanover

"Nothing makes sense without free will and free will is logically incoherent upon deep analysis." Is this a substantial criticism? What does it even mean to give a "deep analysis"? As I said earlier:

But does anything make sense under "deep analysis"? It seems to me that when any totalizing paradigm is pushed too far one falls into nonsense. So when one falls into Scientism they tend to deny (libertarian) free will, and when ancient peoples favored an anthropocentric agent causation they tended to attribute this sort of causation to everything. Maybe we can have both, where neither needs to dominate the other. Maybe there is a middle ground between materialism and idealism. — Leontiskos

I think we can take it as a rule that that thing which nothing makes sense without, is never susceptible to "deep analysis." This is because analysis is an act of dividing or reducing, and the most fundamental and essential realities are always indivisible or irreducible. The Atomists say that nothing makes sense without atoms, but they do not complain that atoms cannot be further analyzed; they recognize it as an irresistible conclusion. The spat between the idealists and the materialists is a spat premised upon the search for a unified theory, where there is only one irreducible reality.

If every event has a cause, then the agent cannot be the originating cause because the concept of an originating cause makes no sense because that would be a event without a cause and we already said every event has a cause. — Hanover

Oh? That's quite a syllogism you're stitching together. If you clean it up I think you will find that you are still begging the question. If I say that a certain event is caused by an agent then that event has a cause, namely the agent. So we're clearly not disagreeing on whether the event has a cause; you are merely asserting that an agent cannot be a cause of an event (and this begs the question I first raised). More precisely, you seem to be committed to the position that only events can cause events. Needless to say, an agent is not an event.

But, if we are going to go with uncaused causes, then we're talking about neither determinism or indeterminism, but spontaneity, which means things just zap in and out of existence. If you ask me why I killed my neighbor, if my answer is that I did it because the spontaneity switch flipped, I don't see that I should be held responsible for that. — Hanover

This is the same false dilemma:

I don't see it as rational to simply define agent causation out of existence. "Everything is either random or determined, therefore agent causation (and free will) do not exist." But why accept that everything is either random or determined? That premise seems clearly false. A basic datum of our experience is free agents who are the cause of their own acts (i.e. self-movers). An agent's free act is not uncaused; it is caused precisely by the agent. — Leontiskos

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And that brings up another issue. If I am a godlike creature with this ability to create as we might imagine God could, why should I be held responsible for my actions, considering I was just sort of given my godlike state by something else I didn't have control over? — Hanover

I think it makes sense to say that we are created in the imago dei, but Aristotle posited moral freedom without this idea, and so I don't think it is necessary.

The proximate question here is whether everything must be either random or determined. Other questions come later, such as how morality works, or whether an infinite regress of event-causes makes any sense.

The point being that there is no solution to the free will problem other than to just accept it as a necessary condition for comprehension of the world. — Hanover

There is no solution. — Hanover

What does it mean to say that there is no solution? What is "the problem" to which there is no solution?

Yeh, I'm of the opinion that the three formulations are not "really the same" as Kant claims... — Moliere

I agree. Good points.

But I don't think the collective will is one of self-interest, exactly. It's more like, in the long run of humanity, the final product that comes about when moral agents are acting within a moral community. — Moliere

I think this is right if we look at the fourth formulation instead of the first.

But does the first formulation really entail that we care about other ends-makers? Couldn't we universalize a maxim that the great dominate, and accept our fate in the war of all against all? What makes these four formulations the only formulations, given that each one -- while they paint a consistent picture of an ethic -- doesn't necessitate the others?

That's where I think this sort of elucidation of Kant's religion and moral commitments make his ethic more understandable. It's in the particular examples, and in making sense of all four formulations, that I think we get a sense of his ethic. — Moliere

Okay, interesting.

The unity of it comes down to human freedom to judge while recognizing the rights of other judgers. — Moliere

I think that's a plausible interpretation, although I also think others are equally plausible. This sort of project would require a close reading of all of Kant's ethical works along with an (at least implicit) hierarchical ordering of the different "formulations" of the Categorical Imperative. This task is beyond me, but I think you are right that bringing in the religious background could be helpful in completing such a project. The idea here is that the religious element is necessary in order to bring clarity to Kant's underdetermined moral system.

I'd put it that it's just a different kind of rationality. For him it's the necessary conditions for any particular moral principles one holds to that the philosopher spells out -- but the philosopher does not need to spell these things out because common, good people already know what is good. There is no deep technical knowledge: One does not lie because it is against the moral law. It's the simple, straightforward precepts of the common religion which follow the categorical imperative, or at least that his moral philosophy is aiming at.

I think he's of the belief that people already pretty much know what is good, hence the emphasis on conscience. — Moliere

I think this explains in part why the opacity did not bother Kant, but I think Kant was under the spell of many false assumptions in this sort of thinking, and I think Nietzsche in particular is going to pick it apart.

There's a way of reading Rousseau which puts the popular will as a kind of agent. But I'd emphasize the "bottom up" reading more. The popular will is the result of individual agents willing. It's the call for freedom, and progress, which I'd emphasize from Rousseau to Kant. While it's true that Kant expresses a "warped wood" theory of human nature, it seems that he also believes in human progress else he wouldn't talk about the need for an afterlife to fulfill perfection. Also it makes sense of his insistence that we should develop our talents, and other such stuff.

He, like many philosophers, expresses the dismay of human nature in their time, but I think he's still a progressive liberal for all that. — Moliere

Okay, fair points. Good post. :up:

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

I think that what is primarily at stake is a "theological" question, namely the question of whether life itself is good or bad, and therefore my response here would be "tu quoque." Your position passes beyond the mere ethical when it comes to depend upon the proposition <Life is evil>. When I respond by saying that life is good, this is not the introduction of a theological proposition, but is rather a theological response to your own theological proposition.

Now it seems to me that you are committed to the proposition <Life is evil> either via the argument that life has a greater proportion of suffering than happiness, or else via Benatar's argument (or some variant thereof). I don't think it matters a great deal which argument is in play, and therefore whether the evil is conceived of as absolute or relative. Either way the conclusion is <Life is evil, therefore it cannot be chosen (via procreation)>. The shift from a merely ethical frame to a theological frame occurs as soon as life itself comes to bear the property "evil" (or bad, or undesirable). The ethical frame (again, in the modern sense) has to do with choices and ends which prescind from opinions about the goodness or badness of ontological realities themselves, such as life.

Clearly, the child did not have to experience any suffering. — schopenhauer1

This is a good example of the ethical/theological or act/potency equivocation. The more precise statement is, "Clearly the child did not have to exist, and therefore did not need to experience suffering." 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.

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

No, not at all, for you have already denied that consent plays a central role in your argument. The Thanos example is apparently apropos. 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.

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?

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

Okay, interesting. I will leave this to the side for the sake of time, but it is worth noting that Platonist and Christian schemes allow for a fallen world of cave-shadows.

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

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?

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

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.

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

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.