This is the kind of ridiculous, seriously f***** up, BS your musings conclude! How low do you go you idiot. — universeness

Because you continue to debate in this manner, I'm done. You've proven you're not worth the time to debate and this kind of hostility is arguing out of bad faith. Argument by insult is not philosophy. Shouldn't even be allowed on this forum actually.

I see you're not a fan of Trump and politicians like him. I am in agreement with you on that. However, these are exactly the kind of cry-baby like antics they do when dealing with people they disagree with.

Still, assumptions are made, behavior is premised on them. Worse still, it’s self-cantered. You consider yourself before considering anyone else. — NOS4A2

This is why Hillel’s formulation of the Golden Rule (who was a Pharisaic scholar who lived a little before Jesus and probably an influence as far as one can tell anything of a historical Jesus).
"That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder

But I tend to agree, if the person is a real asshole they might not mind hateful and harmful things. Thus the Golden Rule is extremely informal. There must be more rigorous ethics underpinning it, and that is the point of ethical reasoning above and beyond quick and dirty sayings.

In this case it should be clear because we are different in our thresholds and standards of what is harmful, we should not act as though we can know everyone’s threshold/standard of harm and thus must respect that when making decisions that affect others to a reasonable degree. It’s a kind of call for quietude and least aggression or presumption.

Um Pocahontas, you suggest that they are in a situation of harm due to their birth and that there exists an intent behind that, which is BS. There is no such intent on the part of the parents or the universe. — universeness

Category error.. the universe of course can never have intent so a moot point.
I also never said the parents had such intent. YOU however, made the poor argument such that "If the person for which an injustice is to take place doesn't exist (yet), it is okay to cause the person to exist (otherwise there would be no injustice). I was explaining the error of this logic.

I recall member DA671 making great effort to get through your foggy thinking. He blew your shallow thinking out of the water and you simply could not handle it. Your pathetic petted lip was present in almost every tedious response you made to his posts regarding your antinatalism. — universeness

Rhetorical blather, as usual from you.

Antinatalism is not a justified solution to the issue of human suffering so you advocate for injustice every time you propose antinatalism as the solution. You can run round and round your little hamster wheel as much as you like, you will still generate no power for your debunked arguments. — universeness

You speak like you have authority. It is indeed a hamster wheel to debate someone as yourself, I agree though.

Is that your best fighting talk? What a powderpuff attack! — universeness

I don't "need" fighting talk. I simply argue the case. Just unnecessary BS that you surround bad arguments with. I get why you might need to though yourself. You continue to poison the well.

If I harm others it is either deliberate, accidental or unintended consequential so not ever 'unnecessary,' such a term is only applicable to those who decide to judge and such judgements can be utterly rejected on an individual basis so it is completely subjective and AGAIN TOO WEAK to use as a justification for something as extreme and ridiculous as antinatalism. — universeness

Ethics is never fully agreed upon, so saying, "Not everyone agrees on X (abortion, eating meat, having children, business practices, etc. etc.)" is simply the nature of ethics, so this is pretending my case is any different because of your particular loathing of it.

But this judgement is made by the criteria that it seems morally wrong to choose for others what harms are acceptable to endure. If we knew that upon immediate birth every baby would be tortured, clearly we would think that act of putting someone in that situation is cruel and wrong. Just because "life itself" isn't an immediate clear torture, doesn't mean that the cumulative amount of harm that someone else will encounter in life is acceptable to create. You would like there to be special pleading due to your indignity and mantle of authority you take on.

No, the problem is that your shallow thinking cannot perceive the relationships between them. — universeness

Not at all. It is simply a category error I am pointing out. You're trying to make a distinction that makes no difference. It's like when someone says, "This isn't a natural source", and the other person says, "Even man-made things are natural because all matter is natural". There is definitely a distinction between human deliberative phenomena and phenomena that is not based on human deliberation. A lion eating another lion, or the mating instincts in most other animals are or liken to natural occurrences, not deliberative acts. And certainly the same as naturally occurring forest fires or whatever other natural occurrence you used.

because they cannot be born innocent if they are never born — universeness

Um, that doesn't mean that you then put them in a situation of harm so that they can be in a situation whereby the offense can take place :roll:. I don't create an injustice so that injustice can be a "thing" for which I can violate.

Your arguments regarding your conflated criteria for 'unnecessary harms' are utterly subjective and on a case-by-case basis, far too complicated and nuanced to be used as an argument for such a blunt dimwitted solution as antinatalism. — universeness

You don't handle nuance well it seems, as you admit right here, so perhaps you shouldn't even touch that one as it might overcomplicate your mind. It's already been spewing out a lot of poorly worked out objections (if that's what they are).

A forest fire could be labeled an unnecessary harm but after the fire, a lot of new growth occurs. — universeness

For some reason you misapply moral decisions with natural occurrences. Unnecessary harms are obviously related to morality here. Just like the animal analogy you poorly used, this one doesn't work either. Rather, if YOU (someone) did something to another person to cause harm unnecessarily, that is what I am talking about. The context is ethics. Keep with it.

As I have told you many times your thinking is too shallow. You deserve every insult thrown at you as you will not accept scientific fact, you will still try to blunderbuss your way through because you are incapable of admitting you are completely wrong. You are a prideful idiot. — universeness

This is just stuff being said. You have not shown the supposedly overwhelming evidence for your claim about the IDEA of "I want a baby/I want to procreate" being an instinct.

The fact that humans procreate sexually is a biological happenstance and therefore the origin of procreation through sex had no moral driver (as I have now stated many times.) — universeness

The origin of procreation has never been the problem. It is the procreation that is the problem, so this is just odd non-sequitor.

Human procreation is not the source of all human suffering as humans were produced by processes with a time span of 13.8 billion years. If you advocate for terminating that process then you are negating every process which naturally occurred within that 13.8 billion years to produce humans and your sole, tiny little reason is human suffering. You are unable to see how ridiculous your reasoning and your suggestion is. Humans are capable of reducing the more heinous forms of human suffering if misanthropes like you give us a chance to. Meantime try to help out rather than add to the suffering by typing the BS you type. — universeness

Huh? You have so many fallacies here I can't really be bothered to list them all but they include:

Causal fallacy or irrelevant conclusion (possibly also an attribution fallacy, strawman and red herring)- The question at hand is the moral question of what can deliberated upon regarding suffering, not the origin of "human suffering" in general. It's similar to attributing a murder to human evolution or compassionate act to human evolution.. the origin of the behavior is not the question at hand in this case, but the choice on whether to procreate.

Unnecessary ad hom- the argument is not valid or invalid because you think I'm a misanthrope or you have prescriptions for me.

So by your logic, would you stop a lion from eating a human? If your answer is yes then why do you feel differently when its a lamb getting eaten by the lion? Does the lamb not suffer?
Does your morality about suffering flex quite a bit depending on which creatures are involved?
Animals suffer, would you not prefer your antinatalism to free them from their horrific sufferings? — universeness

Again, it's not about me, but I do eat mainly vegetarian and do care about animal welfare if that makes a difference.

This is not my argument, so I guess red herring.. but mainly out of your ignorance of my argument. If I had the means to stop a lion from eating a human (a weapon), yes I would because then I can deliberate, and in this case, the moral choice is on me. If I wasn't there, then there is no one to deliberate, and no moral decision can take place.

I see animal upon animal suffering as different precisely because it is non-deliberative actions.

I think your viewpoints are illogical so I am hardly likely to pay attention to your opinions of what is 'a better look.' — universeness

Genetic fallacy and avoiding the issue- you don't like the source (me), so it must be wrong. But it's true, ad homs are considered not legitimate in good faith argumentation, because they detract from the argument. They are an act of desperation or embellishment, or appeals to emotion from the proverbial "crowd", or meant to throw someone off by making them angry or hurting their feelings.

Nonsense, You claim I have not 'overcome' your shallow arguments, I say I have. Others will judge. I am not interested in a panto exchange with your ridiculous non-scientific claims. — universeness

Avoiding the question and argument out of indignity.. I presented to you a claim and you have yet to address it, mainly due to your disdain and appeals to indignity.

You use sweeping unscientific generalisation constantly, so you have demonstrated no ability to posit balanced arguments. — universeness

I was giving you what I meant by "unnecessary harms". My arguments earlier in the thread pointed out that by enacting such harms onto someone, it is a violation of their dignity. It is using them. All one has to agree on here is that there is a moral intuition to not cause unnecessary harm, agnostic of circumstance. I also explained how it is crucial to understand what is meant by unnecessary harms versus (possible) necessary harms, and what that means for the deliberative process.

You handwave away biological fact such as the reproductive imperative and try to convince others that the reproductive imperative in humans is no more powerful than mere whim.
That handwaving alone is enough evidence to condemn you as a pure sophist who is trying to peddle BS to avoid admitting that your antinatalism is based on limited illogical shallow thinking on your part. — universeness

Again, I see no scientific claim for your reproductive imperative. If it is so pervasive in scientific literature, show me the overwhelming evidence that this exists. Keep in mind though, I admitted that physical pleasure is generally selected for and correlated with procreation. Rather, I am refuting that the actual idea of "I want a baby/I want to reproduce" is an instinct.

There is no morality regarding a child before it is born. That which does not exist cannot have any moral aspect to it. This has been pointed out to you by many posters. This has not penetrated your foggy thinking yet! — universeness

There is a difference between things that aren't present and can never happen based on my actions (meeting a leprechaun) and things that aren't present but can definitely happen in the future based on my actions (procreation). Conflating the two is some kind of confusion of what is the case or simply a bad strawman.

He had to be born to make his argument, did he not? Just like you had to be born to make your dimwitted antinatalist arguments! — universeness

Besides the obvious resorting to ad hom here.. This goes back to my example of the island. If a person is alone on an island, no morality comes into play. Once someone lands on the island, morality comes into play. Morality is not negated by there not being enough people on the island for morality to take place. Morality obtains when the conditions are around for morality to be in play.

Antinatalism is a vile viewpoint. — universeness

Just opinion, not an argument.

I offer no apology for any insult I have so far typed regarding your attempt to peddle it as valid. I think antinatalism is dimwitted and cowardly, that does not mean you are a complete dimwit and a total coward, just sometimes and only in my opinion based on your typings.
I am sure your opinion of me is not a flattering one. I don't care if you choose to express your disdain in the same way as I do or not. I leave it to the site moderators to raise a concern with me if they have any. — universeness

Indeed, this is the kind of behavior unnecessary in a philosophy forum and leads to unnecessary and incessant trolling.

I think your antinatalist arguments have been debunked and you are the one displaying the sour grapes. — universeness

Displaying sour grapes? That would be like what you are doing.. A bunch of insults and crazy desperate blather.

If you are a little timmy timid and you cant take any insults then perhaps you are correct and you should not respond to me anymore as you are perhaps too precious to not suffer due to your perception of my discourteous approach to your 'dialogue.' — universeness

Just stop being an asshole and argue your point. Otherwise you are right, you are not worth debating because most of it is rhetorical blather.

Right back at you DUDE! Asexual reproduction does not require procreation with a mate so advising a creature that does not reproduce through sex, not to reproduce shows your ignorance.
Asexual reproduction happens through parthenogenesis, there is no choice for the parent involved DUDE. — universeness

I'll give you this, I lost the thread of your original post on asexual reproduction. All I responded to at that point was this:

If we met a sentient asexual alien species who suffered in the same way as humans do. What would your antinatalist advice be for them?

I had to look back to see if you mentioned the part about asexual reproduction having less choice (because that is the salient point).. So let me get your thought experiment straight: you have a made up an alien who apparently is sentient enough where I can communicate with them and where they can evaluate my input into the philosophy of procreation, BUT also asexually reproduce in a way where they can't help it. I would simply consider that an unfortunate situation, and not a moral one because they can't have a choice in the matter. What do you think I would say? Morality comes from being able to effectively make a decision one way or the other. A lion eating its prey can't deliberate on it, so it is amoral. It is unfortunate for the prey getting eaten at that particular time though, nonetheless.

No it's not! For many humans it is the biggest imperative in their existence. I know that for you, this is just another of those pesky, inconvenient biological facts, that debunks your confused antinatalism. — universeness

Rhetorical blather. Stick to an argument, it's a better look.

The entire animal kingdom demonstrates how strong the reproductive imperative is every single year and we are a member of the processes that produced all other life species on the Earth.
You attempt to handwave away all of that rigorous scientific biological truth with the claim that 'human reproductive urges are no more than insignificant whims, similar to an urge for some chocolate.' You are peddling BS bottles of Dr schopenhauer1 or bottles of batshit crazy batricks as the elixir to solve the problem of human suffering. :rofl: You could make a good comedy duo but not a valid argument. — universeness

Mostly more blather and no argument.. The little argument you try to make doesn't counter anything I said. If you want to counter it, make a point about how this specific preference is different than other perferences other than simply the parallel circumstance that it is about continuing the species.. Just because an act is about continuing the species doesn't de facto mean that act comes from a place of unthinking, non-deliberative instinct. We happen to be a species that reproduces in a complex way that involves all the things I mentioned in the earlier post. The actual preference for "wanting X" works the same whether it's for babies, food, cars, house, drugs, whatever. You have not overcome the argument that to conflate THIS preference with instinct is pseudo-scientific misconception. In other words.. I refer you to my last post and try again but without just insults as your arguments.

You have been given many examples. — universeness

Actually I have not been given "many examples" or "many examples" that would contradict the rule at least.

Don't touch things that are too hot because such will cause you harm. Receiving pain from something which is too hot is not an unnecessary harm, but it is a harm regardless of your status as an innocent. — universeness

This has nothing to do with what I am talking about. Unnecessary harm here has been explained earlier. It has to follow criteria like:
1. You are doing it on behalf of someone else...
2. You are NOT ameliorating a greater harm for a lesser harm (so lightly punishing a child for bad behavior or making them go to school or get a shot would NOT be unnecessary under most circumstances in our society)
3. It could have been avoided and you knew it

Things that are unnecessary harms are harms that didn't need to be imposed on someone, but they were anyways. All future harms X will befall someone who is procreated. The cause of the procreation is the parent's behavior. All future harms X would not have befallen someone if they were not effected to exist by the acts of others..

Your dimwitted antinatalism offers the solution 'well if you are not born then you cannot burn your skin and experience that suffering.' How seriously dumb is that? — universeness

The way you phrase it doesn't make sense. It's always morality about what the parents do, not the child born.

In that way you might become useful to human society instead of a complete waste of DNA — universeness

Yeah your sense of morality is messed up to me because it implies that people are to be measured by their "usefulness". I am sure you are going to say "useful" is a vague notion of something that "helps the species survive" or something like that... If it was being compassionate to people, then while I agree, to procreate people so that they can fix each other's problems is just the leaky bucket argument. I say fix the leak, not clean the mess. And before you drone on about how no humans would exist to fix the leak for.. I refer you to philosopher David Benatar's asymmetry argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Benatar

We are short of many good species like panda bears we are not short of misanthropic humans like you. — universeness

You sound like an inventory clerk checking the back of the warehouse. We are short on panda bears..
Anyways, if you are going to continue to berate me with insults instead of simply arguing your point, I am done here.. I have been on this forum for way too long and have argued against way more interesting posters to not have to be belittled by your poor debate skills. Insults and ad homs are unnecessary in this case. It makes your arguments LESS credible because it sounds desperate, like you need the theatrics of "you dimwit" and "coward" and things like this.. It also just hurts the philosophical spirit of dialogue in general.. Two political sides just insulting each other is not debating the policies at hand. We've all seen examples of constructive debate and something that resembles a debate but was just a way to insult the other side.

Perhaps you should read up on how asexuality works! — universeness

Dude, you should know basic definitions before you make a fool of yourself: "Procreation- the production of offspring; reproduction".
Reproduction can be asexual or sexual.

Nonsense, as for many it would not merely 'frustrate one's preference,' it would prevent them from fulfilling a deeply held natural compulsion — universeness

It's arguable that it is a "compulsion".. Wanting something like a baby, comes from the same place as wanting other things. It's a pseudo-scientific type of misconception that the idea of "Wanting a baby" is something more deeply rooted. You can make an argument that sexual pleasure is evolutionarily selected to be pleasurable, and people tend to want what is pleasurable, and that can lead to procreation.. But the actual concept of "I....Want....a.... (Put anything here)…" is much more than basic brain stem operation, or other subcortical activity.. It comes from the same process that shapes your other preferences. In other words, there is no "I want a baby instinct"... only "I want a baby preference" which correlates with possible "instincts" for pleasure which lead to procreation. It is just convenient for you to conflate the two and make this particular preference into an "instinct".. I can also sympathize (a little) with your confusion as in most other animals, there are strong instincts when animals are in heat that lead to sex which lead to reproduction.. But that is not how human reproduction works. There is no black and white "if/then" type reproduction going on.. A lot of it is cultural, personal, individual, existential (as with other preferences) much more than your reductionist "instinct".

You just handwave this suffering away which reveals you as a hypocrite who does not care about the suffering of others if their suffering does not fit the skewed logic you use to promote your morose antinatalist viewpoint. — universeness

Again, unnecessarily harming people is always wrong. To feel like you are missing out on a preference- even a strongly held one, is not an excuse to go ahead and unnecessarily harm someone because you don't want to feel the loss of the preference. It's like an activity you were looking forward to sounded really fun to you, but it turned out that activity was very harmful.. It doesn't mean, too bad do the preferred activity.

More nonesense, all of life, is NOT going to have harms. When you take a painkiller your pain reduces, it does not get worse. Do all medicines do harm in your skewed world? Antinatalism is an unnecessary harm it causes many many harms. You, therefore, advocate for harming others by suggesting that no one deserves children despite reproduction being a strong natural dictate for the survival of any species. — universeness

I'm only addressing your question as the rest is ad hom unrelated rambling. I was talking about specifically using the justification that your unnecessary harm is excusable because it will precipitate a "learning experience".. But learning experiences are only justified when they are necessary.. To create the mess so that someone can "have a learning experience" is the messed up problem.. It's causing harm to see a person overcome harm.. It's not JUST helping someone overcome harm. If you don't see the problem there or don't understand it, I can't help you.. that's on you being too caught up with your indignation to not engage in what I am saying.

Your antinatalism is vile but harmless and will only ever gain any credence among the fringefreaks in society. — universeness

See above about being too caught up in your own indignation.. This is aggressive ad hom, and not sticking to any sort of argument. Also, concluding with an ad populum fallacy doesn't help your case much either.

People will say that this is more a matter of policy, and can change to some degree and is measurable, so can be evaluated. In other words, they might say that it is not intrinsic but simply the state of current affairs due to bad practice. Even if they agreed to the premise that there must be some injustice, they would say this can be minimized to some (or large) extent, if we changed our ways.

When you say "injustices", you are talking about the usual ones brought up like environmental degradation, harm to poorer people, especially in second/third world countries, and harm to animals, right?

If I understand Julio Cabrera correctly, you are describing a similar argument. He thinks that this world is morally disqualifying precisely because it entails that we be moral monsters. There's no way around it.. If we want to get our "projects accomplished", it becomes part of it.. whether destroying other life, manipulation, or frustrating each other's preferences and in order to justify it.

Cabrera believes that in ethics, including affirmative ethics, there is one overarching concept which he calls the "Minimal Ethical Articulation", "MEA" (previously translated into English as "Fundamental Ethical Articulation" and "FEA"): the consideration of other people's interests, not manipulating them and not harming them. Procreation for him is an obvious violation of MEA – someone is manipulated and placed in a harmful situation as a result of that action. In his view, values included in the MEA are widely accepted by affirmative ethics, they are even their basics, and if approached radically, they should lead to the refusal of procreation.

For Cabrera, the worst thing in human life and by extension in procreation is what he calls "moral impediment": the structural impossibility of acting in the world without harming or manipulating someone at some given moment. This impediment does not occur because of an intrinsic "evil" of human nature, but because of the structural situation in which the human being has always been. In this situation, we are cornered by various kinds of pain, space for action is limited, and different interests often conflict with each other. We do not have to have bad intentions to treat others with disregard; we are compelled to do so in order to survive, pursue our projects, and escape from suffering. Cabrera also draws attention to the fact that life is associated with the constant risk of one experiencing strong physical pain, which is common in human life, for example as a result of a serious illness, and maintains that the mere existence of such possibility impedes us morally, as well as that because of it, we can at any time lose, as a result of its occurrence, the possibility of a dignified, moral functioning even to a minimal extent. — Wiki on Antinatalism

Murder would be wrong, whether or not anybody ever commits a murder. And if we all start murdering each other, that would not make murder right. — Cuthbert

This is a salient point that people keep overlooking. There are the few cases where there are sociopaths that do these things.. I would say that is a small minority (but can be very damaging). The majority may simply just reason wrongly because preferences are often pitted against principles.

In cases of murder, it is much more black and white. It is the grey area that reasoning has to really get more refined to overcome one's mere preferences. Procreation is one such case. As you indicate, there is a pessimism to it and a sort of aesthetic sadness for many people in the idea of the end result being no person around.. But that doesn't mean the principle is not true. Much of that sadness may come from projection of fears of death and loneliness. But it's not part of the reasoning.

In other words, you can't be committed to moral reasoning and then say, "I feel lonely and sad about some projected future state, ergo, I get to inflict unnecessary harms on others because that makes me sad".

If we met a sentient asexual alien species who suffered in the same way as humans do. What would your antinatalist advice be for them? — universeness

Don't procreate.

For many humans, not reproducing would cause great mental and physical harm as it is a natural compulsion developed over millions of years and it is a very very strong instinct. Why are you unconcerned about this set of harms your antinatalism would cause? — universeness

Because not being able to unnecessarily harm others, even if it frustrates ones preferences, even if one is doing it because one wants to focus only on the possible positive outcomes, and intends only the best, is wrong. Positive intentions and hopes do not negate the unnecessary harm. Also, as you stated, sometimes people want to impose unnecessary harms (and call it "learning experiences"). This is mere paternalistic aggression of deciding for others what kind of harms are "benign". I am not talking about just parent's duty to care for children in a certain societal setting either. I mean all of life is going to have harms, and you can try your best to dismiss them as "learning experiences", but then you can cause any harm to someone else in the name of "learning experiences", but you most likely would not do that. Rather, unnecessary harm is unnecessary harm. There should be no cover for imposing on others unnecessary harm for any presumption of "what is best for that person" to happen. I can make a slippery slope argument there, but I won't even bother because even on the face of it, it should be apparent that procreation is a glaring exception in what is otherwise misguided thing to do someone.

I cannot find the post from sushi that you are quoting from. It does not turn up in my mentions. — Bartricks

Here:

I can, and will ? — I like sushi

Who's the judge :wink:

- You validated what I said about the loose use of terms and I do not assume what is or is not meant by ‘harm’ (meaning if he meant ‘unnecessary harm’ then he should have said that AND been particular about what ‘unnecessary harm’ means). — I like sushi

I can't speak for Bartricks. Personally, I would not have used language like "innocence" but it seemed to me that it can be reformulated using other terms that don't have such a Christian or legal-retributive connotation to it.

No red herring. He argued, quite clearly, that ‘innocent’ people do not deserve ‘harm’. If unborn/non-existent people are somehow different in terms of ‘innocence’ then that is something the OP needs to outline and differentiate between not me. — I like sushi

What I mean is that in this case of procreation I don't see that scenario you described of two people's conflicts harming each other applying. I'm still thinking if that itself can be considered "innocent" though, because now motives come into play. Why aren't these people able to compromise? Isn't that itself impugning some sort of characteristic flaw that can be considered "not so innocent"? Either way, that one seems on shaky grounds on its own, and not relevant in this particular case of "innocent persons".

- I would say that life necessitates suffering and that suffering is necessary for any life-form in some capacity. That is what I would call ‘necessary suffering’ rather than throwing a blanket over all suffering as ‘unnecessary’. You yourself pointed out that there is ‘necessary’ and ‘unnecessary’ harm. If you are not entirely opposed to the idea of ‘necessary harm’ - which would be peculiar as if we call something ‘necessary’ then it seems fairly validated - then must surely admit that some ‘harm/suffering’ is actually beneficial. — I like sushi

Surely, I would not CREATE harm for someone so they can do something about it.. whatever reasons I have to want to see it according to my preferences.. My preferences take a back seat here. But I do recognize harms that need to take place in order to help someone out or to prevent further suffering for a person. These cases are always of course when someone actually exists, as they are already in the situation and one must weigh greater or lesser harms now, unless you simply don't care and want that person to die or be harmed or are indifferent to them being harmed which in itself can be construed as callous and unethical.

In conclusion it seems that the ‘harms’ you berate are the ‘harms’ I see as strengthening peoples and individuals so they can live good lives. — I like sushi

Yes, indeed this is the main disagreement for most of these arguments. Somehow people have what I characterize as "aggressively paternalistic" beliefs that they should be able to create the conditions for harm to others because they have a preference to see this come about.. Whether good things come about from those impositions doesn't seem to matter, ethically speaking. It is simply a preference with obviously significant collateral damage that people simply waive off as fine to do, when otherwise, they wouldn't do that to someone, even if they thought it was best for them (if it was an autonomous adult).

I did not consent to gravity either … and it is right there in the hyperbole where the nuances of the argument begin to be lost. Gravity is not exactly a phenomenon of nature like birth is, but picking apart what is similar and different in these two phenomenons might help. — I like sushi

Um yes, huge differences in gravity and procreation.. While I do indeed think there are misconceptions, I think we disagree on where. For example, the main difference is that procreation occurs due to a decision made.. one made from one person on behalf of another, and without consent. Even if you were to give a wildly ridiculous answer like, "Well, we can choose to live in space where there's no gravity", it still is a decision one can make and consent to where birth would never have that luxury. Of course, being that living in space is not really viable for most people, and would probably lead to death, it becomes like many other things about life (and actually part of what makes it a negative) a de facto, non-starter for this current state of affairs.

My view is basically formed around the use of hypotheticals and general dislike for ‘ethics’ (meaning something announced to the community as ‘good’ or ‘bad’). My dislike is due to the constant self manipulation we torture ourselves with due to peer pressures and general societal ‘norms’. — I like sushi

I can sympathize with this. We can use other terms for what is going on in this argument for antinatalism. I guess ethics is a placeholder idea for not allowing mere preferences to rule what is best to do. So, if you are a vegetarian but you like meat, you might really prefer it and say "fuck it" and eat meat even if it doesn't align with what you normally think is a valid principle. People do it all the time..

My argument for antinatalism (whenI complete it) is more or less going to be about how the argument can benefit us collectively and as individuals. — I like sushi

This to me, might not be a valid argument (even if for antinatalist principles) from the start. I think ethics really obtains at the level of a person affected. That is to say, causes outside an actual person that are generalities (including "humanity" or "the universe") would be invalid ethical recipients. This to me means some kind of quasi-Kantian idea that people have a dignity which can be violated. That is why I am so against aggressive paternalism in regards to what OTHERS consider "benign harm" on BEHALF of someone else. No one gets to set the standard for someone else that THIS is acceptable, even though its a known harm.

Just as no child has lost out from never having been conceived, so no child was done an injustice by being conceived, because no child existed to experience either the loss of opportunity or the injustice. — Cuthbert

You are talking as if the possibility of a child is a fiction. The possibility that a real child will be born is "on the table" so to speak. You are simply not allowing that option to play out for someone else. So an injustice was not done (because the possibility exists that it can).

We are currently mortal and transhumanism is in its infancy so we still require children to replace those who die. I think we always will produce new children as the universe is such a big place, so even in the very distant future of transhumans, I think will still need newborns. — universeness

So you are literally stating the cause for which you are using people (by harming them unnecessarily).

No human race, no need for concern about justice or anything else. — Cuthbert

If one is alone on an island then ethics in regards to other people doesn't matter, yet ethics is still valid. Once another person lands on the island, ethics is now back in play. The absence of people using it, doesn't negate its validity.

@I like sushi

In the meantime I can hopefully help a little by pointing out several issues raised about the OP.

1) “This is, I believe, a new argument for antinatalism.

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

- Having done nothing neither makes someone ‘innocent’ nor ‘guilty’. It is irrelevant.

I see this the same as saying, "Don't harm people unnecessarily". Unnecessarily implies that there was no good reason to harm that person. Then you can ask what might count as that no good reason. If a person didn't need to ameliorate a greater harm with a lesser harm, and it affects that person, and you cause harm, that harm would be unnecessary for that person being affected. Harming a person for a reason outside the person being affected (especially if there can be no input had by that person being affected) is simply using them.

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

- You have failed to explain this. If your position is that an innocent person deserves no harm but that is what innocent means then you have no argument. You are just stating something and expecting people to follow.

Either way, it is faulty to paint things so black and white. In a scenario where two ‘innocent’ people’s interests conflict harm is inevitable so your definition does not hold up at all. Such inevitable harm comes about through ignorance/misunderstanding. You can still argue on some level that ‘neither deserve harm’ even though two innocent people have just caused harm to each other, but only if you accept that the judgement of what someone ‘deserves’ is a judgement made with an effort to ignore any blame due to ignorance.

But this isn't the case of birth so a red herring. At least you haven't made that connection.

3) “Furthermore, an innocent person positively deserves a happy life.”

- Unsubstantiated claim.

I see this as just reiterating my restatement, "No one needs to be harmed unnecessarily".

4) “So, an innocent person deserves a happy, harm free life.”

- To repeat. Unsubstantiated claim.

Same as above for my answer.

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

- We know this because life without any degree of ‘harm’ whatsoever is not ‘life’. Life requires learning and learning is always, at some stage, a hardship.

Just because life requires X suffering, doesn't justify imposing that suffering on others unnecessarily. The theme of this whole thing!

6) “It is wrong, then, to create an innocent person when one knows full well that one cannot give this person what they deserve: a happy, harm free life. To procreate is to create a huge injustice. It is to create a debt that you know you can't pay.”

- None of this follow as you are riding on too many unsubstantiated claims and poorly sketched out terms.[/quote[
I think it can be retranslated as "Why would it be okay to feel that YOU can impose a significant amount of harm (that didn't have to be imposed) on ANOTHER because YOU deem it okay to do that?". You can make up all the excuses in the world, but all of them would be violating the principle of not creating unnecessary harm and using people. You can then turn around and say that it is good to cause unnecessary harm, but that would be immoral in almost any other circumstance (to KNOWINGLY cause guaranteed unnecessary and profoundly significant harm).

7) “Even if you can guarantee any innocent you create an overall happy life - and note that you can't guarantee this - it would still be wrong to create such a person, for the person deserves much more than that. They don't just deserve an overall happy life. They deserve an entirely harm-free happy life.”

- I might want to be able to fly like a bird or win the lottery. A ‘harm free’ life would not be a ‘life’ at all. This seems to be a rather naive view. It is a bit like expecting a child raised where their every action is praised blindly and expecting a well rounded individual to emerge from such a methodology of raising children. Many parents have attempted to ‘protect’ their children too much and with pretty horrific outcomes. The very same idea of ‘no harm whatsoever’ (regardless of deserving said harms) inflicted upon someone would result in early death due to said person being incapable of looking after themselves. I do not view a ‘happy life’ as a life under the perpetual guardianship of a tyrant whose sole purpose is to shield said ‘innocent’ from every single possible harm.

But again, you are presuming/assuming for someone else that they have to be harmed because YOU deem it good that they are harmed.. Because, as you admit, life entails harm- and we are not talking JUST trivial harms either.. but very significant and foreseeable harms.. And not only significant foreseeable harms, but ones that couldn't even be predicted if one thought about it.. And these are harms of all sorts of situations, some related to not wanting to do X that life entails of you (existential harms), and others to the usual physical/emotional harms we see people go through over and over. Then there are others we could not foresee that we would never want people to go through, and would have not wanted it had we known it would have happened to that person.

Indeed, if one can't get consent, one cannot presume that it should be fine to:
a) cause significant amounts of harm unnecessarily on someone else's behalf
b) impose on them the parameters of this existence (needing to deal with survival, comfort, etc.) which was not asked for, but cannot be escaped easily

And yet, here we are with a paternalistically aggressive mindset whereby parents presume that they should be able to create these situations for someone else.

Apply the violations entailed in procreation to almost any other situation regarding an autonomous adult, and it would violate other moral intuitions that we have about consent, harm, impositions, and using people. It is indeed, causing UNNECESSARY harm, UNNECESSARY impositions, and therefore using people for X ends OUTSIDE that person being considered/affected.

@Bartricks, to be fair to Sushi, he did answer your OP line by line.

Not true as you advocate for 'prevention' of conscious/sentient lifeforms which can be harmed despite the fact such gives purpose to the universe. — universeness

Giving purpose to the universe literally doesn't make sense to me. The universe is not a "thing" to give "purpose to". Humans might feel a sense of purpose, not the universe.

Do the world a favour and stop being such a morose misanthrope. — universeness

Non-sequitor and ad hom.

Evolution and natural selection has no moral driver. — universeness

I can agree with you there...

I am suggesting that the origins of 'birth' or 'life' has no moral driver and thus is not associated with the morality of harm or suffering. — universeness

This doesn't make sense to me. The "origins of birth" is not a disembodied thing, but a decision/action made on one person on behalf of another and indeed is laden with values about what should or should not be done and how we view harms.

Nature compels procreation, it's why it makes heterosexual males fervently attracted to females and makes heterosexual females fervently attracted to males. Do you think your infinitesimal antinatalism can compete. :rofl: — universeness

Being attracted to someone is a complex phenomenon shaped by genes, development, and to a large extent cultural expectations. That is another debate though. That is not the question at hand. Being attracted to someone and thus procreating with them are two different things, even if they are related. Certainly you can make a case that people choose to be unthinking in regards to procreation and simply do what is pleasurable without forethought, but that is not a claim on the morality of procreation, just pointing out a fact of people's poor decision-making.

Of course it can, I am not anthropomorphising, we are OF the universe, that is FACT.
If we are removed from it then the universe will be harmed/diminished, especially if it turns out that we are the only lifeform in the universe with our level of cognitive ability. Even if there are others, we may still be incredibly rare. To advocate antinatalism is therefore highly irresponsible and reckless, if not just plain stupid. — universeness

We owe the universe and the "species" nothing.. "They" are not entities that have the capacity to be owed. A category error.

But who’s the fool and who is suffering the fool? The Arrogant Bastard’s eternal dilemma contradiction.

He was always arrogant and dismissive but yes, his aggression got worse over time it seems.

He derailed threads with his vitriol, and made little effort to explain his positions, he just belittled and insulted whoever disagreed with him. If everyone acted even half as bad as he did, nobody would ever want to post here. Dunno what he did to lose his special treatment but glad to hear he's gone. — Judaka

Here here..
His special treatment came from an idea I raised that if a person is knowdgeable in specialized areas, people often give that person a pass to act like an arrogant prick.

Example: I know X thing that makes you money. My specialized knowledge is necessary for your company’s doing well. I can therefore act XYZ negative ways against others because I wield this knowledge with impunity. The thing is he rarely used the specialized knowledge in such a useful way, so isn’t even that close an analogy.

I can remember for example he ran a long thread on Wittgensteins PI and got a lot of in depth debate about passages therein. That raised his stock amongst the literati in these parts. For every one of those, he had 10 times more negative impacts towards posters even slightly different in interests and takes.

I think it's fair to say that almost no one would object to this decision if Streetlight wasn't a great contributor in other ways. But we don't give out licences to break the rules to anyone. — Baden

This brings up a more general moral principle.. How much leeway does one give those who possess a lot of information about X?

For example, from what I've read, Albert Einstein was a pretty nice dude. Clearly, his immense amount of knowledge and expertise advanced our whole understanding of physics how the universe works. What happens if instead of being a nice guy, he was an immense douche to everyone who disagreed with him? My guess is his contribution to the field of knowledge in general would give him a pass.

But contributing some academic-minded posts to an internet philosophy forum and being a douche to anyone that disagrees with you? Probably not so deserving of a pass.

But even more to the point, having proprietary knowledge in and of itself should not give you a pass to do what you want.

One more point.. in a philosophy debate setting like a philosophy forum, it is not enough just to be well-read, but to also be able to interact with the minimal guidelines of decorum, as it completely dissolves the spirit of philosophical inquiry if you aggressively dismiss the interlocutor and never actually engage in the debate itself.

One cannot know how many contributors have been put off posting by the many gratuitous insults he made. — unenlightened

Yep

He was overly sensitive, quick to insult and never showed any attempt to use even a slight degree of charity in any interpretation. Once cast in the role of ‘enemy’ he lost all sense of reasoning.

If he was more thick-skinned it might have played out differently. Maybe after several months of therapy he will learn or maybe not. Either way good riddance! — I like sushi

:100: yep

Was there a specific comment or thread that broke the camels back to get him kicked out?

Dude, he had some good information sometimes.. and when focused on a source text, could lead some constructive debates... but that guy pissed on everyone when he was here. And I have been here longer than him.. I will give him a positive though.. he seemed to be a fair moderator. He didn't seem to abuse his power.. At least as far as I know from my limited view.

I always held out for the hope that he would have a sensible debate that didn't turn into vicious attacks, insulting rhetoric, and automatically dismissive stance against interlocutors, but that rarely happened. Shame, because he had the potential to stick to the debate and be more constructive.. But it seemed like extreme self-importance and arrogance got in the way of his own argumentation. That's my sense anyway interacting with him over the years.. We mainly got out of each other's way though.

It is just as arrogant to suggest this life we have in this universe is somehow a bad one and we should prevent anyone living it. — universeness

But alas, this isn't what is happening. Since no one is actually harmed from being prevented, there is no actual foul for any person in this case. Besides which, if you can't know what someone would want, or even begin to understand the complex desires, personality, and makeup of someone who will be born when they develop into an autonomous adult, it is quite the opposite of arrogant as no one is actually making a judgement call on behalf of another.

But you are an insignificant force and cannot stop the questions. Learn from any suffering that comes your way, do your best to prevent or alleviate the suffering of others and become part of the solution instead of what you are now, part of the problem — universeness

Sorry, but antinatalism is not CREATING problems for OTHERS which causes a person to thus deal with those problems. This is gaslighting 101. I'm sure you aren't intentional with with your gaslighting, but that's what you are doing and promoting. You don't create problems and then say "YOU" are the problem because you don't believe in creating messes for other people to deal with.

We are a product of the natural process of evolution and natural selection and you are trying to anthropomorphise morality into that process. — universeness

This is the naturalistic fallacy. Being a product of nature, and intentionally following an ethic because it is seen as "natural" are two different things.. If that is what you are getting at..

. At the moment we cant say much more than, were here because were here because were here because were here. — universeness

Actually it's quite easy to not put other people in the "here" thing.. Just don't put them here (procreate). It's something we can do.. Unlike shitting, or eating, it's a process that is completely based on decisions and actions that are not inevitable.

Stop crying about the journey. You dont want everything to be just perfect for you as you would never experience achievement or have any purpose. — universeness

But I would never create a situation of harm for people JUST so they can overcome it and feel achievement. That itself is paternalistic aggression and not good.

Enjoy the wonderful adventure of life. — universeness

Everything is not an adventure. A lot of things are baked in the "situatedness of life" and are not positive. We can't will it away or ignore it either. It's things we are FORCED to deal with ONCE BORN.

Stop recommending that we should harm the universe by refusing to exist within it. — universeness

Now who is anthropomorphizing? The universe can't be "harmed", and certainly by simply "not procreating".

Don't be so scared of life, don't be a coward! — universeness

Now you are just giving an example of a common cultural trope to reign people in who see things clearly about the inevitable harms and negative situations we must deal with and endure.

I lay before thee, life and the curse, therefore choose life so thou mayest live, thou and thy seed.
Even atheists like me can find some use in theistic style prose. — universeness

I prefer song lyrics.

The answer is to get better at protecting the innocent despite white noise protestations — universeness

This is all that's needed. Unless you don't mind YOU yourself, don't mind causing unnecessary harm to others, no other contingencies are needed. And certainly you can agree life itself is going to be full of harm. It is a known fact..entailed in life itself. That fact however, doesn't make it right, it makes it a reason to not do something to someone else.. Just like any other case where if you know it will harm, and it is unnecessary to do so, you wouldn't do it. Unnecessary being the key here. No one NEEDS to be unnecessarily harmed. Adding (because I want to see X) would add to the wrongness, because besides having no reason, you are now using a person for your preference to see something or an agenda beyond the person affected from the harm.

I also might add, being overly paternalistic is also a factor to consider. To think that because you think this life we have in this universe is somehow a good one, that others must live it, is the height of arrogance. You are making a decision on someone else's behalf that THESE conditions of life are perfectly fine for others to have to endure. Simply because one can't have a choice to endure this life, doesn't mean "Oh, ok, this be permissible to make someone endure because this is the only thing to endure". That doesn't go together. The only choice is compliance with sub-optimal conditions or suicide if they don't like it. A terrible thing to do to someone, and again, paternalistically arrogant to think that this should be done to someone else. That beyond all the harm that will incur to someone is enough to disqualify procreation being considered neutral or good.

Moral intuitionism is not the same as the ad populum fallacy.
You would have to distill what is the moral facts of the mater and what are non-moral factors.

The moral intuition might be that inflicting unnecessary harm is generally wrong to do to someone else.

However, the application of such intuitions might be disagreed with.. I think Harrison's point remains that the application of procreation is a blindspot to this kind of moral intuition.

When we point to the behaviour of others as a source, you say their behaviour can't be trusted as a guide to their moral intuitions.

When we point to culture as a source, you say cultures change and moral intuitions evolve.

So the question remains - on what grounds do you claim that others share the moral intuition you have, such as to claim it's 'misapplied'? — Isaac

Both are true.. Cultural practices have been (generally) getting more X, Y, Z (tolerant, less harm-based, etc.), but also people's behaviors surrounding procreation are definitely something of a blind eye based on other intuitions.

If everyone disagreeing with you is 'trolling' then this is not the place for you. — Isaac

I actually didn't see that you answered him. Because I try to do the right thing, and I now know something I didn't know earlier.. I'm going to take it down. Because I am a person who tries to have integrity :wink:.. Even on an anonymous philosophy forum.

Of course it is. I'm knowingly risking harm to others. Accelerating a ton of metal at 70mph is inherently a risk to those around me. The analogy required only putting people in a position where they might come to harm, but not deliberately intending that they do. — Isaac

This doesn't overcome my objection :roll:.

Presumably, you don't drive your car knowing that every time, harm will ensue. — "schopenhauer1

Yet as you well should know, life will absolutely be guaranteed to contain some harm, and significant amounts of it.

So how likely does it have to be, and why? Is 100% a different moral imperative to 99.99999%? — Isaac

I've said this before but all life after birth WILL have harm. It's entailed in the processes of living a human life. Procreation is a point where you can absolutely prevent all harm. No one ever seems to pick up that point and tries to relativize all harm with a particular harm that happens once born, as if picking out a particular harm is analogous.

But even without this major difference, my objection still stands that you are not driving KNOWING that you will harm someone. Life contains KNOWN harms.. so also a major difference.

If I were a tribesman and I enlist help building the houses for the whole community, it's pretty much guaranteed that someone will come to harm as a result of this activity (it's dangerous work). If I even so much as sharpen a weapon, it's almost guaranteed that someone will one day cut themselves as a result of that sharpening. Examples abound. — Isaac

It's not forced. Presumably the person wanted to help. If they were forced, then it was a wrong. Presumably, forcing other autonomous adults to do something (even if we think it a good deed) is not moral itself. If I think that all my friends should help me with my garden and they don't but I put measures in place to force them to help me with my garden as I think it's the right thing to do.. well, you see where this is going..

We live in social groups and see the welfare of the group as greater than that of any individual - or at least the non-sociopathic among us do anyway. — Isaac

Creating the mess so people have to work together or die doesn't prove anything other than the very point that procreation causes others to have to deal with things..

Your claim absolutely relies on others sharing your moral intuition. But you've failed to provide any argument supporting this. — Isaac

That's just, like, your opinion man. Harrison did a good enough job describing those basic intuitions of non-harm, non-consent, and others (did you even read the whole paper or just my quote from it). Presumably, "most people" don't want to harm people unnecessarily. And none of your objections pointed to that. What you fail to see is that "unnecessarily" implies "can be avoided".

Let's say we agree that everyone is limited in what they know as to the best way to show someone how to do something. But, let us say that you know of two ways to show someone how to do something. You knew that you can show someone the "dangerous way" or the "easy way". You also knew that the "dangerous way" had no discernible benefits down the line.. If you taught someone the "dangerous way" because you simply wanted to see what the other person would do, that would be wrong. I don't see that being some highly individualistic intuition. Even if I was to present someone with danger because I felt they would like the danger, and tried to mitigate harms for them, but had no idea whether it would truly work, the very fact I knew there was a way to not present danger to them, precluded that as the better choice. Remember, there was no NEED for the danger. It was completely unnecessary to occur for that person who will be affected by the danger. That would be indeed using them for our preferences, for no reason.

So thanks - my argument is so good all you can do in response to it is question whether we know anything at all. Do you realize how incompetent that is as an argumentative strategy? — Bartricks

Yes he does seem to be moving to questioning all of ethics as a relative thing now.

Neither would I. We're talking about putting people in conditions in which they may come to harm. Not deliberately harming them. I do the former every time I take to the road in my car. — Isaac

Ugh. No, that is not analogous. If you put a gun to someone's head to drive a car, you're getting closer. But even then, it's not really analogous but at least getting at doing it on behalf of another. Also, when you drive, it is not guaranteed that someone will be harmed. But all of life itself? Harm abounds. Presumably, you don't drive your car knowing that every time, harm will ensue. Now, we can argue how bad people estimate expected harms, and ignore the fact that there are harms no one can even anticipate.. and the (reckless?) Pollyannaish nature of making these decisions on behalf of others, but that is a different thread too.

They are no less mistaken for exactly the same reasons. — Isaac

And I'd of course say this is incorrect.

You keep jumping to the beliefs of cultures. What we're talking about are the moral intuitions which guide those beliefs. I don't think any moral intuition guides the belief that there are Gods in rocks. — Isaac

No the point is that culture can change what intuitions there are. So I guess I am getting even more meta.. Even so, not appropriate for this particular thread.. As Bartricks would say.. stay focused (followed by a provocative insult). I mean Kant gave a whole treatise and I'm supposed to give you a whole metaphysics of ethics in a post? C'mon.. Charitable you are not and so not biting and going off on your long march to 1000 pages on this thread.

You're not presenting any alternative. If we cannot look to people's behaviours to determine their intuitions, then what? Where do we look instead? Unless you answer this question you're just building castles in the air. — Isaac

Huh? I was giving you examples (Ancient Roman torture and gladiators, religious persecution, etc... these are all "behaviors" if you will.. but then you reject them as cultural..but the people who did them presumably thought they were a-ok...)

Moral practices change over time. I don't see evidence that moral intuitions do. — Isaac

So now I give you examples and then you are positive that moral intuitions don't change. Possibly culture changes to "better" moral intuitions, but very slowly.. going forward and backwards but generally moving forward...

(Gladiators are prisoners of war or hated group X.. these people aren't "people".. religious group that has different views.. these aren't "people" in the same way as the former.. turns into.. tolerance, lessening of harm to others or unnecessarily harsh justice, empathy, diverse views without dominance, etc. the general trend is for more empathy, inclusiveness of difference, tolerance, etc...maybe includes animals, may include not causing unnecessary harm to people, period.)

It's not sufficient to say that because looking to cultural practices for moral intuitions is flawed you can just make up your own and claim them to be universal. — Isaac

All we have is analysis based on intuitions. It would seem that in other circumstances, unnecessarily hurting others would be wrong. Here we are unnecessarily hurting others.

The point doesn't really require a thread. It's much as above. Either your intuitions are always right (God-complex), or everyone's intuitions are always right (relativism), or some generalised sense of human intuitions as a whole are what's right. Dismissing the former two as ridiculous, we're left with the latter.

The latter requires an ad populum argument to arrive at the 'general sense' — Isaac

No, and yes it would require a lot more than this thread is arguing.

It is. We consider it fine in many contexts. — Isaac

Really? I would never unnecessarily harm someone to any significant degree if I could help it.

. Seeing as having children is just about the most consistent human activity ever, it's ridiculous to dismiss it as a relevant context. — Isaac

This is the arguments vegetarians/vegans make though. We consistently do it but not necessarily because of any scrutiny to if we should. It's a consistent cultural practice and a strong personal preference.. So if we want to make a parallel case of the kind of blind eye of procreation, we can do that here, as I see it as a good candidate for the same kind of arguments.

As we've discussed before. Intuition don't go around neatly packaged with little labels on them. We can only gather what they might be from our behaviour and feelings. If most people feel morally fine about having a baby that's very good evidence that they have s moral intuition such that it is st least fine, if not actually advised. — Isaac

Some cultures think that gods are in the rocks and the trees. Ancient Romans thought that it was cool to subject people to gladiator events and torture for entertainment. It was pretty consistent in their culture. Others thought burning at the stake was good for suspicion or actual having the "wrong beliefs". So?

2. Almost every single human of the 10 billion or so that have ever lived have all made sa mistake which you (and a couple of others# have finally spotted 400,000 years later. — Isaac

Again, a lot of practices are no longer seen as good. Moral intuitions can change over time.. That is where Harrison was right about moral particularism perhaps.

Still depends entirely on the reason for creating the mess and the extent of the mess. Creating a minor mess, without intent to harm, and for good reason is basically morally fine by most people's standards.

Again, if it's not fine for you, that's up to you, but we shouldn't be surprised that unusual conclusions arise from unusual premises. — Isaac

Creating a mess, without intent to harm, but with knowledge that it will harm, and for no good reason for the person it is affecting because no one exists yet to need it, is not fine by most standards.. it is misapplied in this case.

Well then intuitions are not misapplied. Your intuition is that we shouldn't risk unnecessary harm on others without their consent, and you are not having children as a result.

What possible grounds could you have for assuming other people share your intuitions on the matter? — Isaac

I had a long response here, but I want to get back to the topic at hand.. If you want to start a metaethics thread.. let's debate it there.