(that depressed people can kill themselves and so it is ethical to risk creating depressed people is an actual argument I hear a lot by natalists ergo the last line about the hunger game participant killing himself if he doesn't like it. I also often hear "You don't have the right to make life decisions for someone else", the irony) — khaled

Great points. However, the natalist will retort, "But the majority of people like life!" and thus no other argument is deemed necessary.

I was speaking more to a sense that we embody goodness in simply being pained by evil. It is better that some element of the world actually cares what happens, isn't it? — petrichor

People care about pain is good? Yes.

World B contains more total suffering than World A. But which is a better world? Is it about simply minimizing suffering on a balance sheet? — petrichor

No it isn't. That has never been my position. These opposed to these holistic balance sheet approaches of aggregate suffering. That would be using individuals to simply be calculated aggregate- leaving the individual as just valued as an aggregator. I think even most natalists would agree with that idea. What is rather the case is uniquely, at the procreational decision-making level, there is a chance to prevent ALL future suffering for a future person and to NO COST to any actual living individual (outside the parent's projection of imaginary child that could have been). It is a ghost of what could have been or one's own selfish want for a child versus preventing ALL future harm for another person.

Suppose I am to have a kid and I can choose whether they'll care or not, and I know that if they don't care about anything, they'll suffer less. Should I choose that they won't care? Suppose I can also choose that they'll be so mentally limited that they won't know they'll die, and so will be free of much anxiety. Should I choose that they'll be so limited?

Suppose I could snap my fingers and suddenly all living beings will simply be buried in the ground in safe little pods where they'll be only conscious of the continuous pleasure from machines stimulating their pleasure centers. Would bringing this about mean that I have improved the world?

Is trading consciousness and understanding and caring for pain-reduction always simply and obviously a good thing to do? — petrichor

Now this is an interesting question. I do think that if the world was indeed a paradise, and never had a chance of not being so, there may be room for the natalist argument to make sense. I still don't buy the argument that a best possible world with various bags of mixed pain and pleasure is a world one should bring people into. I also think that at a meta-level, knowing that the set-up of this world is such that we grow from pain, and we get meaning from pain, it is all the more reason to prevent people from being born in the first place. What makes a previous generation the arbiter that "It must be good" that new people should play this game of growth from pain? Isn't this the height of arrogance? You say it to me as if I did not know this is how the game is..I call it Nietzschean- the idea that it is "beyond good and evil" and "beyond pleasure and pain" to bring new people into the world as their existence is somehow "elevated" by the pain that they will endure and cope with. I get all this. I just don't buy the idea that this little growth from pain package (actual major) should be foisted upon an individual.

And if there were no consciousness to suffer to begin with, you might say there would be no reason to have people who care that there is suffering. The world would simply be better off dead. But this ignores all the value in life and the possibilty that it couldn't exist without all the suffering. It might well be the best of all possible worlds. — petrichor

And here I object as well. I see it again as arrogant to assume that parents are the arbiters of value in the world. Value MUST be brought into the world, you and others decry. Why? A world of nothing is nothing. No one to care there is nothing, nothing cares about nothing. This is incredibly myopic and from the point of view of someone ALREADY EXISTING. Of course you identify with the state of being that you already are. BUT future children are not in an already existing state. And thus assuming that the state of nothing is worse than this "best of all possible worlds" of value from suffering, mixed bag, whatever you want to call it, is in a way, foisting this ideology on another. Nothing needs to be saved from nothing. However, once born, one always needs to be saved from one or another situation. They have to cope, deal with, etc. Yet, you will say this is good. But this is not necessary nor is it necessarily good to make others cope or deal with because you find this mixed bag ideology satisfying for yourself (at a particular time).

We are the universe becoming aware of itself, the world waking up. Isn't there some value in the universe coming to wonder what it is, why it is, and so on? Isn't there something more valuable and amazing in a pile of clay that stands up and asks what it is, even if pained, even if afraid, as opposed to a pile of clay that remains forever just a dead pile of uninteresting clay? If you were to witness such a pile of clay rising up, would you just cleanly terminate its consciousness, just put it out of its misery before it can even really get started, saying, "There! That's better!"? — petrichor

Again foisting value that something has to be better than nothing. Actually it's more than that, now you are using the very broad idea of pansychism to justify having more people as an inevitabilty since you think the world is consciousness anyways, so you are just giving it human form, etc. That is the tail wagging the dog, circular reasoning, and the ultimate self-justification.

Some often claim that the world is uncaring, that nothing matters, that nature is coldly indifferent, and they say this with a negative feeling about this lack of caring that they imagine in the world. But only a dead world is so indifferent. A living world is a world that cares. To eliminate all life that might suffer, and especially all higher, intelligent life, is to ensure that the world is indifferent and that nothing matters. If we exist, then at least part of nature cares what happens and things matter. Even the universe itself gains value and becomes something that can be appreciated and wondered at. — petrichor

Again, I don't see how parents should be the arbiters of the "universe caring about itself". People should not be used as "carers" of the universe. Why should people be used at this end?

There is something paradoxical about valuing human beings enough to care enough about their suffering to wish them non-existent. That anything happening to them is worth caring about suggests value that wishing to eliminate their existence seems to ignore. — petrichor

Yes, I care about people's suffering. I know that nothing matters to nothing. There is not future person's existence until you actually create that future human. Thus this argument makes no sense. You are creating the people who care in the first place.

I will end by saying that even though I disagree with nearly everything you said, I welcome your arguments more than the offhand dismissals and basic trolling I see regarding this topic.

The kind of unconscious, thoughtless living that your recommendation seems to suggest is not in my nature. That's the problem with a lot of procreation. People are just too chilled out, not worrying, and not considering consequences, much like animals. Lots of horrible and needless problems ensue.

Just experience and enjoy everything for what it is? Enjoy everything? For what it is? Seriously? If I didn't know better, I'd be tempted to think you must have so far lived a fairly untroubled and oblivious life to say something like that. But I know that everyone has their share of shit to deal with and to witness, so I banish the thought. Rather, I suspect that this must be your coping strategies speaking. — petrichor

Wow, I think you summarized Terrapins main problems astutely well here and yet I disagree with almost everything you wrote in the reply to my last post. I'll get to answering that soon.

My theory: to increase awareness, connection and collaboration towards overall achievement, unless blocked/prevented by fear. — Possibility

But doesn't this sound a bit too starry-eyed to you? What makes you think this? Is this conscious or unconscious? Is this evolutionary? Are humans that "If/then"? Also, aren't these just the type of values society would want individuals to follow anyways, thus begging the question, or making it circular?

Once again, an interesting discussion, Schopenhauer. — Possibility

Thank you :smile: .

Once I understand what’s most important to me, are these actions the only options I have to achieve it? — Possibility

Why would anything become important to me in the first place? At the end of the day we are looking to be most comfortable, survive, and find ways to assuage boredom. Mainly we seek out the positive "goods" of in various forms of achievement, physical/aesthetic pleasure, relationships, flow-states, and maybe learning to this basic motivation of boredom. But how we prioritize specific goals each day on the microlevel- how this "background radiation" of general motivation is translated to individual deliberations everyday to do anything at all is fascinating. Much of it is based on habituation patterns, social expectations, enculturation, mixed with less predictable contingent circumstances, personality-traits (maybe?), etc.

For example, whatever motivated @Bitter Crank to write the post on the Second Amendment is interesting.. all the goals and deliberations and causations that lead to that activity.

I think the activities you are listing are probably different than those I was. You're planning ahead. I would think consciousness would have a much bigger role in those than the ones I discussed. I was talking about motivation that lead immediately to action. I'm sure they are different, although I'm not sure how much. — T Clark

Yes, so not getting fired becomes a priority. Getting in car to get to work..etc. These are all habits dictated by the social convention- lateness or absenteeism leads to being fired in most places, so we habituate ourselves with the values of timeliness and punctuality. We take on self-imposed values to align with how others expect us to act. Then there are other values.. Many times I think these values are projections of what others might think we should be doing at that moment. Other times we just go to the lowest common denominator and do what's most expedient. It is interesting how we decide what we are going to do, and even determine what it is we want. It is more of a fuzzy sense of direction often made more defined by self-imposed habituation of values, addictions, expediency, discomfort, and loneliness/boredom. I would still characterize most decisions as based on survival (in a societal setting), discomfort, and boredom (in a societal setting).

But is that a good reason to have kids? So that I can use them to give my life meaning? — petrichor

Exactly..I'm glad you brought that up because I was thinking that from your previous paragraph.

But I also feel terrible denying them the chance to become conscious, to experience love, to hear music, to inhale the intoxicating scents of a forest, to create something, to come to understand some things, even to be saddened at the injustice of death. Yes, even that latter one. There is a goodness underlying any suffering of a bad. — petrichor

Your mild sadism (which is what I call enacting suffering for others so they can "grow" from it) does not need to be enacted in the first place. You are displaying the exact projection that I discussed in earlier posts..All of this is your imagination, not the reality. The daily grind is the reality- even if an old pine forest smells nice. No one needs to grow from suffering if they do not exist in the first place to need to grow from suffering. To produce a life of suffering because you want to see someone suffer so they can grow is wanting suffering for another, which I don't see the point of prior to someone's actual existence.. Producing sufferers, is producing sufferers, whether there is "growth" at the end of it or not.

Yes, loss is painful, but loss implies the existence of something valuable and truly worthwhile that can be negated by it. And there is some sort of hard-to-explain value even in the existential situation of there being a human confronting all that is difficult, even suffering the loss of beautiful loved ones. How horrible if we didn't suffer the loss of a beautiful being! — petrichor

Why does something need to exist to feel the "beautiful" pain to begin with? This "Beyond Good and Evil" shit is really grating to me, honestly. It's simple- no humans, no humans who "pine" for the beauty of suffering. Again, this is just projection. There is no need to put anyone through anything in the first place. Let sleeping dogs lie. You are not the arbiter of bringing more "meaning" into the world. That does not need to take place. It's just romantic sorrow-projection of your own ego.

I feel grateful for the life they gave me. And I find, even in my darkest moments, I am glad to have lived and known what I have. What a trip it has been so far! — petrichor

Yes yes, the party line.

There is far too much to life to reduce it all down to a single, simple judgment, a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. — petrichor

But that's exactly what we are doing when deciding whether to have children. In that decision, we are deciding if someone else should be born, and that is a thumbs up or down.

Many of us would like to feel we can give ourselves permission to die, to escape the problems of our lives, to be free of what our lives ask of us. — petrichor

Life asks nothing- simple survival and navigating society to the ends of survival is what there is. Otherwise slow suicide by asceticism or fast suicide by some method. Great choices- live a life one might not want, or suicide..you want to give someone that choice, you say?

What complicated creatures we are. And how richly baffling life! It certainly isn't simple or easy. And all of us are struggling in one way or another. But I see value in it all. — petrichor

Just remember, procreation is deciding for another what value they should hold- they must be born and live with it or they should die (by suicide or otherwise). That is the choice you are giving them. The party line of identifying with life's struggles and overvaluing the good experiences is par for the course. Of course we must do this to cope, but it is coping. We have no other choice except death, and we usually fear pain, pain of death, and the unknown.

This May be true, but many people say theyre ok when they are actually not, often due to peer pressure. — Baskol1

True. Also there is Pollyanna psychological bias to only remember past moments that were good in more detail. As you said, most people simply are habituated to affirm positive evaluations, no matter how mediocre or bad their life is on a day-to-day basis.

None of this will matter to the natalist. As long as they can point to the idea that "most people say their life is good or glad they were born" it is near impossible to win them over no matter how many arguments, how much suffering there actually is, etc. In other words evidence and sound logic doesn't matter if they can point to that as their full stop.

The truth is that you will suffer in life, some people more than others. Happiness on the other hand ist not guaranteed. — Baskol1

Good point. Apparently people want the children to face specific adversities in order so they feel the benefit of growing from them. This of course makes no sense since there does not need to be adversity in the first place.

The KO argument the natalist will use is that most people will self-report that they like life so case closed.

Come on. I've written a lot trying to describe how it feels to do stuff. I've enjoyed it and it's been helpful for me to try to put into words, but it's time for you to contribute a bit more. — T Clark

I liked reading your comments. Sorry, I'm trying to formulate something but it's hard to. I am trying to understand how people's intentions/desires are formed, and then how people decide to act upon them. So today, I've decided to do X, Y, Z tasks and I am going to give various reasonings for it. Some of them are work related, so the reason I am going to give is that I don't want the bossman to get mad or my work to be less efficient if I don't do these other tasks. Other things I might do are watch some documentaries, read, and meet up with a friend. I am going to give various reasons for these too that are less causal. One reason for the documentary is to inform myself of more information, same with the reading. I am going to meet up with a friend because I like talking to him. But where do these desires stem from? How did I decide these are the things I am going to do? When I change my mind, what priorities are more considerable than others? I'm not asking you to answer my personal goals and priorities, those questions are more rhetorical :). The human animal is perhaps the only animal that has complex deliberative abilities, and I am trying to understand the mechanism by which we deliberate and take action from our deliberations and goals- arguably the most unique of human traits.
@khaled

There is no problem with the first explanation as far as I can tell because it disconnects consciousness and material effects completely but it doesn't explain what consciosness is or what gives rise to it. The second explanation explains consciousness right off the bat but it doesn't explain why the material world is so consistent. They both techinically have no logical problems, its just which you find more believable: That the material world exists and out of it results a completely useless consciousness while all decisions are made by said material world (they're not really decisions) or that consciousness is the basis for every decision ever but then everything is conscious. — khaled

I really like your thoughts, but I'm trying to get at something more phenomenological- though I think you may want to start a thread on this one. I'm trying to get at the subjective experience of what how we form our intentions/desires and how we act upon them. It's not necessarily about the hard question of consciousness which this seems to indicate. I am very interested in that subject too, however.

Anyway, back to your question. The feelings well up from inside me, where all my feelings come from. From nowhere. Not really nowhere. From the part of me that is not readily accessible to my self-awareness, although I am aware of the feelings themselves. In the cases when my heart and mind are working right, they arise directly from the motivation. The motivation and the act are the same thing. What eastern types call acting without acting. No reflection. If things aren't working right, it's a jumble of desire pushing for action counteracted by fear or conscious thought pushing back. Indecision, anxiety.

I know we're talking about motivation and this isn't the same thing, but maybe it will give a taste of what I'm talking about - Where do the words come from? In a sense, the words create consciousness, are consciousness, but their creation, for me at least, is not a conscious act. There is no voice in my head that says, write "The," write "dog," write "pissed," write "on," write "Baden's," write "foot." Again, they bubble up from inside. I sit at my computer and they pour out onto the screen. Whole thoughts, paragraphs, poems, ideas, stories come in chunks or all in one piece, often accompanied by visual images, feelings, moods. Then my fingers move and they show up in front of me. The words write themselves. Sometimes I'm amazed at what I've written. Where the hell did that come from? This is a common experience, not just for me. Again, acting without acting, writing without writing. — T Clark

Ok, but what made you write in the first place as opposed to something else? Where does your goal and then decision to act on the goal come from?

how old are you exactly? Three years of age? Four? That's the age when the "why" questions never stop. — god must be atheist

Why even comment on this thread? Don't be an asshole. The question of the OP directly applies to you here.

Sleep 10 hours, breakfast, check computer stuff, play expert bridge tournament, lunch, play, go places, later, write books and make videos, then play, hang out. That's what the Cosmos does. — PoeticUniverse

So, as an individual making these decisions- internally, what goes through your mind that makes you actually do these activities?

Usually, I eat lunch at sometime between noon and 1:00 pm, depending on my schedule. It's pretty automatic, habitual. It's not really driven by hunger and I generally eat the same sorts of things. Then sometimes, when I haven't eaten in a while or if I've been doing physical work, I get this feeling rising up, hunger. And I'm not just hungry, I'm often hungry for something specific, sometimes unusual. Pickles. Olives. Hummus. Then when I eat, there's a great feeling of satisfaction when I eat. — T Clark

So you wake up and get out of bed, do some stuff which you say is habitual (brush teeth, etc.), and then do some "stuff" which you decide you want to do. Where do these decisions well up from? What is the cause? Is there a cause? How do you structure the liquid fray of all possibilities into some actual activity?

That which my will/brain has come to be of the instant. Causes/decisions precede the subjective awareness of them. — PoeticUniverse

So how does this look for you in real time on a daily basis? Describe what happens when you do any activity?

All of these are artificial forms of motivation. Habit. External. — T Clark

Where did this come from? Do you think habituation is a way to bypass indecisive quibbling? Or, rather, what is the benefit of habituation? Whence did you get it?

All of these are artificial forms of motivation. Habit. External. There's another kind. It's the way I know all motivation should be. I picture it as a spring bubbling up from underground - somewhere inside me. It's the kind of motivation that feels right, that makes me happy. I know it's from the best, truest part of me. But it's hard. The signal is easy to disrupt - that's what the other types of motivation are - disruptions of the way I know I'm supposed to act.

It's completely unconscious. I guess it's what Taoists call acting without acting. I don't think any true motivation comes from conscious thought. Thought can stop or guide action, but it can't provide the fuel. That's why I think all the questions and controversies about consciousness are overblown. They miss the point. — T Clark

Can you give an example in "real time" how this would look in your daily life activities and decisions?

Ah the whole causal chain. So what is it that makes you do any particular activity in your daily life? I mean this as a subjective experiencer of someone who is doing the activity.

The Cosmos. — PoeticUniverse

Can you explain?

So can you reconstruct how that goes answering where the desire comes from and how it leads to activities?

What makes doing the yard or philosophy a priority?

Markov models in a molecular evolutionary context. The relevant thing to look for in here is how expanding the 'state space' (available information which is incorporated to process dynamics) can reduce the dependence on the unobserved past (unavailable information that is implicitly unincorporated — fdrake

Can you explain this further? What is the question at hand?

How does desire lead to the actual activity? How does the desire arise for you?

Also not all philosophy about values is ethics, by the way. — Terrapin Station

I know that. Axiology is often the term for value theories in general, which include ethics.

but I pointed out that I hadn't said anything about what philosophy was in general, and just in case you were thinking that philosophy in general tended to imply something about normative values (otherwise why were you bringing up a characterization of philosophy in general?), I was stressing that MOST of philosophy isn't about values, period, and SOME of the philosophy that's about values isn't taking a normative approach. — Terrapin Station

My point was that I am arguing because I am doing what people who do philosophy often do- argue a point in philosophy, specifically in this case in the realm of ethical decision-making. C'mon. It had nothing to do with what kind of ethical branch we were discussing here. Whether or not I convince someone or not is a different story.

I said that MOST of philosophy is not about the normative sense of values. That's different than saying that NO philosophy is about the normative sense of values.

And then I said that SOME philosophy that deals with values is only about values descriptively. This doesn't imply that I'm claiming that ALL philosophy that deals with values in only about values descriptively. — Terrapin Station

I just don't get why you wrote that anyways. Because I referenced dialectics in philosophy, and ethics is a form of philosophy, ergo dialectics in ethics? Somehow descriptive ethics vs. normative ethics was brought up, but unqualified.. I don't know just more holding patterns and rabbit holes to go down. I warned khaled that is what you did, and you are true to form..

I don't know if you are sincere or you just like the contention and getting a rise out of people. Cannot tell in internet forums.

What would you say this has to do with the comment of mine you're quoting? — Terrapin Station

You said:

Most of philosophy isn't about the normative sense of values. And some philosophy that deals with values is only about values descriptively (so it's not the normative sense). — Terrapin Station

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative_ethics

It's a thing man..one of the major branches of ethics in philosophy is normative ethics. How one "ought" to behave. Anyways...

My guess is that most people will be more convinced if it is a strong argument on something they never really considered before, and impacts them because it was something they didn't take into consideration before. In this case, you are coming into this with a set of values that you want to hash out. That's fine, but there are different scenarios as far as how arguments can convince. It isn't always X vs. Y, but just people absorbing value X and trying to see if this makes sense based on something they may never have tried to consider. Or perhaps, someone made an argument that presented something in a different way that made sense to them. Not everything is a knockdown brawl of values, as you seem to make things.

Sure. I hadn't said anything about that, by the way. I just said that you can't change someone's values via argumentation. Most of philosophy isn't about the normative sense of values. And some philosophy that deals with values is only about values descriptively (so it's not the normative sense). — Terrapin Station

Please, normative ethics such as Kant's deontology, Mill's utilitarianism, and virtue theory are debated constantly, as are their applications, and applied ethics in general. Descriptive ethics is one study as is meta-ethics.

Anyways, if I'm on a philosophy forum, and philosophy is about dialectics often via debate with others, then I am doing what people who participate in philosophical activities do, so you can't blame me there.

As far as convincing others of the actual arguments I present, I will agree with you to the extent that argument is an extremely hard way to convince someone of a view. There are cases like "changemymind" on reddit etc, where it can happen, and if I did enough research I can give you probably some high profile or interesting cases, but I honestly don't feel like putting in that effort to prove this point to you right now. What I can say is that appealing to emotion is much more effective than purely logical ideas. It has to really affect someone's point of view from where they are at that moment in time in their thought and experiences.

Yes I'm asking for an actual world example of that if that's the part of my post that you're disagreeing with.

Note that I'm not saying that folks' values can't change. I've just never seen them change via arguing with them. — Terrapin Station

Before I do that, are we going to agree that philosophy is basically based on argument and dialectics?

If you're just disagreeing with the notion that you can't argue someone to different values, show me an actual world example of doing so. — Terrapin Station

Are you asking, has anyone who has held one set of values been convinced through argument to hold another set of values?

Mattering is subjective though. No fact can imply that anything matters or doesn't matter. It's an issue of what an individual values. The things they value matter to them. You can't "argue someone to different values." — Terrapin Station

Um, in philosophy, debates and arguments are pretty much its foundation. It's essentially built on dialectics, starting with Socrates. So your characterization is wrong there. I also think people can be convinced, though it is often very hard in a debate-like setting as this, where people will defend their view to the death as to not appear that their initial stance was wrong.

To your other point of individual values, again, values that effect/affect another person completely, that is to say starting another person's life is pretty huge. Your values majorly created a new ontological status for someone else, not just yourself or others who already exist in a minor way.

"Of no moral worth" is not true, because that solely depends on what an individual assigns moral value to. Anyone can assign any moral value, positive or negative, to anything. And they can't be wrong in that, because there are no (normative) moral value facts. There's no valuation to get wrong. — Terrapin Station

Hence we are philosophizing. I can only try to convince you that prior to birth, preventing harm for a future person is all that matters and I have presented a lot of arguments for this idea. I have argued why positive experiences being created does not matter in this procreational area, and I have stated the asymmetry argument. I have also stated the using people for agenda argument, one which does not need to take place in the first place. I have discussed collateral damage, and the idea of parents are not arbiters of existence, in some weird quasi-democratic committee that existence needs to take place for others because a "majority" dictates this. We have gone over the arguments. You can disagree with them, but I will present the case as I think it should be heard.

At any rate, it's not just that I don't use "harm" as a moral hinge. Even if I did, I certainly wouldn't use "creating the possibility of harm" as a moral hinge. In general, I'm very much against legislating against and having moral proscriptions against possibilities/potentials. I'm not against negligence laws, but they have to be about something specific that actually happened, where the negligent party had a causal role in the occurrence, per the way I define cause. — Terrapin Station

No one is talking law though, just personal decision-making and heuristics. Life does contain structural harms in certain views, and certainly has inevitable outcomes for harm, not just potentials. To say life may contain harm at some point, is a bad joke at best- we know it will contain harm. What I think you are really trying to convey is you have problems with basing decisions on only considerations of harm and not the potential for good experiences as well. That is where the AN will always disagree. The AN will say that the parent has the ability to prevent all suffering with no cost. Any other "hinge" consideration would be selfish and of no moral worth. Keep in mind, this is all in the situation prior to birth, not after when someone already exists to receive benefits from good.

Anything other than harm at the procreational decision-making level would be forcing a projected agenda on someone else that would be using them for that agenda.
— schopenhauer1

That's not something that I'm either legally or morally against. I'm not categorically against manipulation, exploitation, etc. In fact, I think that both can be quite positive instead. — Terrapin Station

THAT view is a real problem for me. Creating people to manipulate and exploit them for an agenda is just wrong. Example: To force someone, who did not exist in the first place, to be thrown into a mixed bag of experiences of challenging situations or uncomfortable situations, because you like to see someone try to pull out of it a better person, is still wrong. Nothing need growth before it was born to need growth. To create situations from wholecloth of exploitation because it is fun to see someone come out of a struggle on the other side, is wrong. Even if it is "for" the person, prior to birth, there was no person who needed to grow or get the pleasure of feeling adversity in the first place. Creating adversity, where there was none before is wrong.

Until natalists can answer why starting negative situations on other's behalf is permissible
— schopenhauer1

So the situation that parents start is life. If the kid in question sees life as a "negative situation," then we should get them some help--psychological help, basically. (Which can be obtained in a variety of ways, including other things to focus on--like philosophy in some cases, religion in some cases, etc.; it doesn't necessarily require a psychologist or psychiatrist, though it might.) — Terrapin Station

It's too late. You already created the life. As I've stated many times before, life is "dealing with" "overcoming" "coping", and so you indeed put someone in a situation where these strategies of mitigating harm must take place. No need for it in the first place before you chose to follow the dictates of exploitation and manipulation to provoke this situation to come about- values that you embrace apparently.

I don't think the matter is as simple or flippant as you are making this out,
— schopenhauer1

It's not flippant at all. It's an ontological fact. Good/bad and similar evaluations are simply ways that people feel about something (and/or its upshots per their understanding), dispositions they have towards it. — Terrapin Station

Your disposition affects someone else's entire ontological being's very existence, that is the point. It is not like other decisions which mainly affect yourself or if you want to be annoying about it, other people in a butterfly-effect sort of way (i.e. you picking ice cream flavor makes a chain reaction, etc.).

This decision affects another person,
— schopenhauer1

I don't know if it would be plausible to say all, but probably the vast majority of decisions affect another person in at least some indirect way. There's nothing morally problematic about this in general. — Terrapin Station

Oy. No, this creates a whole new life, that is major.

Creating negative situations for other people,
— schopenhauer1

"Negative situations" is way too vague, though. And any situation can only be negative to an individual, in that individual's opinion, which we can't know until we ask them their opinion. Anyone could consider anything negative. I don't think that a lot of what people consider negative is a moral problem. I often think that the problem lies with people considering things negative instead. For example, when people are offended by speech. — Terrapin Station

That is a slippery slope. The problem is the condition/platform for ALL negative conditions will be created. That is problematic if you care about creating negative conditions for others.

This is a great post. I have posted similar thoughts many times, but I don't think I've done it as well as you have. — T Clark

Thank you! I appreciate that :grin: .

First off, rephrasing my questions in such ways, is not a great start to answering them, but I'll indulge your odd idiosyncrasy here, if just to clarify what was misinterpreted:

The philosophy of engineering is an emerging discipline — Denovo Meme

I simply never said nor implied that. I simply asked a question that was philosophical in nature as to the relevance of engineering, because one of philosophy's main "credible" contributions is not assuming anything, whether it seem self-evident, "practical" or otherwise. One of the main points, is no ideas must be taken without justification.

I do not believe that gaining mainstream credibility is much of a goal in philosophy. — Denovo Meme

I didn't say that, but it also depends what you mean by credibility. If we mean credible as a method of inquiry and a body of study, then I would be a personal advocate of philosophical inquiry as there is a wealth of inquiry/and various avenues of solutions to draw from regarding "what is", "what is true", "what is good/right", "what is evidence", and the list goes on. If you have thousands of years of dialogue stretching back to the pre-Socratics that have covered these big questions (and have posed many new ones along the way of course), why would you ignore this body of inquiry and possible solutions? If nothing, else you can compare your own thoughts to them and inform your own justifications and understanding. Also, philosophy since at least Aristotle, has used logical argumentation as its foundation, often using symbolic logic to formalize arguments. This creates a much more analytical/detailed approach that can inform one's ability to present an argument, provide logical cases, and generally enhance critical skills.

They would want to know because they concerned for peoples' well being. Apparently you are not concerned. — Denovo Meme

Wow, you missed the point of that question. No, the point is that there are so many assumptions with just making electricity in the first place. I can make an existential argument- if life was just making electricity and producing goods, and ephemeral pleasures, would that make a "good life"? What if no one asked big questions? In fact, would things like electricity or relativity be created by scientists if they limited their inquiries to the purely practical? Einstein for example, was very philosophically oriented, and used theoretical approaches to answer questions. This approach was later experimentally verified and used for practical applications by other inventive people who may also asked "bigger questions".

I can also say, why should Joe get help with the electrical bill? This is a social problem right? Social problems are inherently philosophical... Should people get help from government, private industry, no one at all? If any of these answers are correct why? All people deserve X,Y, Z things, why?

Also, I literally meant, why create electricity? If people did not exist in the first place, we would not need any tools/engineering. What is the point of putting more people into the world, to make more electricity? That is self-refuting.. If you say to discover more engineering principles, then this begs the question, and just shows our bias for some set of values. See what I mean, NOTHING should be taken at face value. That is the philosophical approach. To take things as just the way they are presented to you, would be uncritical and non-self-reflective. Those are maybe some of the credible contributions philosophy can bring to society and individuals- people who can think critically for themselves and pose big questions.

Edit: Oh, you may have been answering someone else yet mentioned me before you did so..My suggestion is to simply quote the person you wanted to reference, so people don't get confused who you are replying to.

Schopen, dude, I asked a question. Yes? Philosophy is about asking questions and trying to answer them. When I ask a question like, "Why should we listen to philosophers?" you have no business asking me why do electricity? It is worse than rhetorical, its obfuscation. — Denovo Meme

Not when it's trying to make a point that is answering your question :roll: . It's an answer by demonstration....

Has it become a parasite on humanity. Personally I do not think so. But it is looking scabby. — Denovo Meme

I just think it funny, because the very question you pose is philosophical and not scientific :razz: .

Has it become a parasite on humanity. — Denovo Meme

Again, there are so many assumptions here. What makes something a parasite? What makes something not a parasite..Again, by even parsing the solution to this, you are philosophizing.

I will keep asking the question: Should listen to philosophers. What is their credibility score? — Denovo Meme

That question doesn't even make sense. So I made a case that philosophy, in its way, "beget" the science you say has "real" credibility, so there's that. But, what is credibility to you? Again, even trying to answer this question becomes just another philosophical inquiry and yet another person's idea of what is "good", what is "real", what is "proper" (all philosophical questions).

Investigating what science is and what philosophy might meta-be does not help Joe Average to put food on the table. Joe wants to know how to use science and philosophy to pay the electricity bill.

I really do wish to know why we should listen to philosophers. What is their credibility score. — Denovo Meme

Here's a question, what's the point of using electricity in the first place? Why engineer all this engineering?

If you give any answer, no matter how "self-evident", it is still an argument that needs justification. That is where the philosophy resides. Philosophy is more a mindset of critical analysis, informed by others who have posed/tried to solve the same questions and adding to that dialogue (i.e. a dialectic of sorts).

Hi. I am new here and this post is my first taste.

When I read or discuss a bit of philosophy I become frustrated with the way people quote a philosopher as if the philosopher has the answer. An equally questionable refuting quote is tossed back. There is never a shred of data, worldly evidence of universality, or even revolutionary insight. Is philosophy a professors version of drunken ranting in a bar? Science has fundamental laws and principles by which we obtain a 0.05 answer. What is the philosophical equivalent?

Thanks — Denovo Meme

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Science is done in a certain social context, with certain underlying assumptions, in a certain historical development, in a certain community, with certain political underpinnings, in certain economic context, etc. The aims and goals of the sciences, the rules of the science language-game, the root of empirical investigation, epistemology vs. metaphysics of what is being investigated, the aims of the experiment/observation, how to place it in the context of what came before, how the experiments should be interpreted, etc are all rife for philosophical investigation. Science is founded on and amenable to metaphysics/epistemology, philosophy of science/math, philosophy of language, and even ethical/political philosophy. Philosophy helps pose questions and offer analysis at all foundational levels surrounding the sciences. The language-game of philosophy doesn't work in fixed laws, though it sometimes uses logical proofs. Science may be bound to data from experiments and observation but to claim that philosophy must follow these rules, is to make a category error. Even debating what is science and philosophy is not data-based. The argument is a non-starter from not understanding the difference in where the two differ and where they are similar.

The fact that people are observing "laws of nature" means there was a whole underpinning in the first place that takes/took place in a philosophical context. The philosophical schools of empiricism in the European Renaissance, the idea of human reason in the Enlightenment era, etc. lead the way to constructing the foundations for what counts as empirical investigation and thus, for these "laws" to be discovered/interpreted by a science community in the first place.

The gist of all this is that philosophy surrounds, supports, finds critical problems with the very science you seem to pit as "against" philosophy or somehow separate from it. Science has been in the philosophy family, the whole time though. Though philosophy can use empirical data, it is not bounded by it as the sciences are. However, even this is a wrong way to say it, as what "counts" as empirical data can also be philosophized and interpreted in many ways.

At any rate. Yes, I'm the arbiter of what's good, relative to me. You're the arbiter of what's good, relative to you. That's how it necessarily works for everyone. Good/bad and the like are judgments we make and dispositions we have regarding preferences. That includes if what someone uses for a guide is a consensus opinion or something like that. They're still deciding that relative to them/their opinion of good, they're going to go by what the consensus opinion is. — Terrapin Station

That's fine, being your OWN arbiter of good relative to you and me, but this decision affects a whole lifetime for another person, so I don't think the matter is as simple or flippant as you are making this out, like buying a flavor of ice cream or even intra-worldly moral decision-making once already-born. This decision affects another person, and in many negative consequences, creating harms to overcome from wholecloth because YOU decided ANOTHER person needs to live out these consequences (again with the understanding that the alternative is no person existing who would be deprived of any collateral goods).

Creating negative situations for other people, even with intended good outcomes, or with positive collateral benefits is still what is being examined here in its moral consideration. Certainly the logic is there in the asymmetry, but the appeal to follow the logic and not simply what one wants to do, ad populum arguments, social norms, etc. is another matter. I can't force you to see harm in the matter of procreating another person as paramount, only present the logic.

Right, that is the gist of the AN argument. It would be a category error to focus on pegging causal instances to the parent. It is only at the procreational level of decision-making that uniquely ALL harm can be prevented with no cost to an actual person (the Benatarian asymmetry).

Someone like @Terrapin Station is simply going to say something like, "I don't believe harm should be the only consideration or any consideration for moral decision making".

That is why my response goes something like, "Parents should not play with other people's lives. Anything other than harm at the procreational decision-making level would be forcing a projected agenda on someone else that would be using them for that agenda. It would be callous as it would be starting the very conditions and platform of harm for someone else, along with known and unknown challenges. All of these things are creating, wholesale, negative situations for someone else, that they did not need in the first place".

Until natalists can answer why starting negative situations on other's behalf is permissible outside of some idea that they are allowed to be the arbiter of such situations through ad populum notions, they don't have a good answer other than it is a current acceptable social norm.