I disagree with this. The idea of human nature is a central one to my way of thinking about people. Based on reading philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science plus my own experience in life, I see that we are deeply human at a biological, genetic, and neurological level. I say that so you know why I am resistant to any denial of its existence. — T Clark

Those were Sartre's words btw. Forgot to tag.

Will explain later. Time to go to work now :)

It also strikes me as arrogant. We are who we are, but we are also what we are. Sartre's radical freedom feels like Nietzsche's ubermensch. You can take that with a grain of salt, since I have read very little of either man's work. — T Clark

He was undoubtedly influenced quite strongly by both N and H.

My question was more or less an EVEN IF approach to the whole issue of 'essence'.

Whether we agree or not we can still follow the reasoning and find the paradoxical problem of knowing how to distinguish between a victim of bad faith or someone in bad faith. Clearly to play the victim is bad faith. I am not sure he ever addresses this issue other than to say something along the lines of 'be true to yourself' - as echoes.

Nominalism is nominalism. You will have to be more specific with your question maybe?

From my pov, nominalism is nothing other than the Cartesian doctrine that matter is extension. — Gregory

That is ONE way of using nominalism I guess?

The literal meaning of the term is how we name/nominate items of thought/experience as X. What use abstract concepts are, how universal terms work and how these terms relate to reality are all what nominalism focuses on.

A nominal perspective is a pretty interesting one to take when thinking about stuff.

This might help to better outline his distinction :)

In case anyone is confused by what he meant by no nature/essence:

"Furthermore, although it is impossible to find in each and every man a universal essence that can be called human nature, there is nevertheless a human universality of condition. It is not by chance that the thinkers of today are so much more ready to speak of the condition than of the nature of man. By his condition they understand, with more or less clarity, all the limitations which a priori define man’s fundamental situation in the universe."

Human beings have an essence, a nature. To ignore this is simply to be ruled by something that lies outside one's grasp of reality, to be determined by ignorance. Our actions do not spring from the aether uncaused, nor do we. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, what exactly did you mean here then if you know he never suggested we 'spring from the aether' as you put it?

Our actions do not spring from the aether uncaused, nor do we. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Note: I do not believe this is what Sartre was saying. I do not believe he denounces obvious physiological facts or differences (such as sex or the human body in general).

If you have read Sartre and can explain why in depth I would love to hear it.

An in depth analysis of your understanding of his argumentation against essentialist ideas in the manner he was talking about them would be great?

The question remains how/if the paradoxical position Sartre gives can be overcome? If not that then merely fortified in some way that is productive?

My mistake 20-21

Try this (page 20-21 in particular):

Existentialism and Humanism

Is it even relevant for people to know or say of others that they are in bad-faith? As you point out, it is an 'internal' concept. — Pantagruel

Yes, because if someone is accusing others of oppression they may be doing so in bad faith. This would basically mean that someone sees something they believe is 'oppressive' (which is not) because it suits their worldview to deceive themselves to avoid anguish and discomfort. Given that Sartre points out that the bad faith of people (systemic or otherwise) leads to oppression.

It is an internal concept that is created and propagated by the individual. It passes judgement but can certainly err.

No, not exactly, because Sartre is saying there is no true self (no 'essence'). We create ourselves.

Babies are not blank slates. — T Clark

We do not have to agree with his propositions to explore the contradictions. He is basically appealing to a form of self-determination (termed as Radical Freedom). He admits that people are born in certain circumstances and situations that make avoiding bad faith more or less as of a struggle.

I think the object is still being-for-itself. An object is already quite meaningful: even rocks are more meaningful than being-in-itself. The Being-in-itself/Being-for-itself distinction is the most basic dualism of Sartre's which is offered as a means for resolving various paradoxes, but like all basic distinctions in a philosophy, it's hard to define it explicitly. — Moliere

He famously stated that "existence precedes essence". As I understand this the very premise Sartre works from is that of atheism. The paperknife is an object created for a purpose, where the purpose is its 'essence'. Humans have no 'essence' because they were not created.

The term object can be attached to a being-for-itself in the realisation of an individual being among other individuals. He terms this as the 'Other'.

Because you said you had a belief, I asked you to explain it and then you said why should I.

If you cannot explain your belief, no problem. I will move on swiftly. Time for me to go and drink someone else's orange juice.

Bye.

I'm not going to be providing any papers, you didn't ask me to prove any specific claim so anything I give you will seem random and you cant convince people by throwing random papers at them — Ourora Aureis

I asked this: How are aesthetic and moral values the same? You made the claim. If you are not willing to argue your case then I am puzzled why you are here at all.

I was merely intrigued by what you meant. Sounds interesting.

First I have to state my belief that all values are equivalent, there is no difference between a moral or aesthetic value. From the dislike of murder to the love of orange juice, these concern the same type of preference known as a value. — Ourora Aureis

I am curious what backing there is to this belief.

You will need to back up your reasoning then.

there is no difference between a moral or aesthetic value. — Ourora Aureis

How so? Explain why people believe there is a difference. By all means site any papers relevant in the cognitive neurosciences I am fairly well versed in that particular area.

This is somewhat false. Many antinatalists would prefer there were restrictions on procreation on ethical grounds. Otherwise, your description is good. — AmadeusD

Explain what kind of "restrictions" you are talking about here. You might be correct as a great many of people with a shallow understanding of the principles involved would encourage this quite strongly (people who watched a youtube video and decided it sounded about right). Anyone with a more thorough understanding in favour of enforcing such ideas by law are extreme radicals and should probably be treated with contempt by everyone else (they will be by me for sure).

This sounds very much like nonsense the way you put it.

I am guessing it is not nonsense though just badly expressed. Maybe explaining how your view does or doesn't cross over into solipsism? That might help others to understand.

Also, consider the very problem of measuring 'suffering' against 'pleasure' even if you did not buy into the whole asymmetry argument.

In terms of nonidentity I have already shown how we can have care and concerns for future generations, so this is involved in the argumentation too.

That is it. If you understand this you understand the AN position and the problems it poses (regardless of its 'rightness' or 'wrongness').

Take out Suffering, and the whole AN argument collapses. — Fire Ologist

So does life. There is no life without suffering so you would effectively be achieving nothing by making a claim that suffering is absent.

The 'suffering' is part of the argument involved with the presumed Right to bring life into the world going unquestioned. It is a very subtle part of the AN position but nevertheless essential to it - just like the Right to have an abortion for some women.

There is the claim to a Right to act in a certain manner (create/negate) potential life, and the issue of 'suffering' too (which is inevitable for any living creature).

To repeat, you have absolutely no need to agree with the AN argument only to understand the inner workings of it. The issue of nonidentity might not be much of an issue for you either, but it is for many. You just have to accept this and say "okay, but no thanks," and take what you can away from the discussion.

Just like someone believing in a god you have to listen to them, throw in some questions and then see if you can make some kind of sense of it all as best you can. Ultimately there is no conclusive answer as we cannot measure such things as yet.

There is a point in my mind where having an abortion is the right way to go and in my mind there is also the point where AN is the way to go. I have a far less murky picture of former than the latter.

What right do I have to make someone else late for work by driving too slow? What right do I have to cause a car accident? None. So if preventing suffering in some possible scenario is the highest ethical ideal, then I shouldn’t leave the house. — Fire Ologist

Nothing to do with AN.

I can have a baby and “do my best” not to cause any harm to that baby. So if meeely having the baby sets up the conditions where I didn’t prevent suffering, so does leaving the house and involving anyone else in my actions. — Fire Ologist

I answered by saying if 'suffering' was not an issue there is still the issue of questioning the intrinsic right of of having a child (the nonidentity problem).

Do not get me wrong I understand the kind of comparison you are making, but it is not an AN position to argue about things such as the right to punch someone in the face, be late for an appointment or such items surrounding the usual ethical concerns of existing humans. It is about looking at the ethical issues surrounding the reasons, and 'human rights' involved in procreation.

The 'suffering' part is A factor not THE defining factor of the AN position. This is why I have stated multiple times that both need to be considered when viewing the AN position.

How am I any less immoral by having a baby or leaving the house? If I leave, I am likely to cause some suffering to some potential person, just like if I take steps to procreate I am likely to cause some suffering, therefore yo prevent suffering and be an ethical person, I shouldn’t leave the house or procreate. — Fire Ologist

I believe such a person would do their best not to cause more harm either by leaving or not leaving their house. Once we exist it cannot be undone.

Again, the point of focus would be the nonidentity and what right you have to bring someone into the world in the first place.

You may as well ask something like why not wipe out the entire human race over night BUT that is not what AN is saying. They are concerned with the Rights of potential people and our justification for viewing having children as a human right in and of itself (without considering the rights of a human that never asked to exist in the first place).

Being born into an idealistic world still begs the question of why we do it and whether we really should. I imagine everyone has a number of reasons for having children and an even greater number of people never even really think about it at all.

A stochastic experience is needed to possess an iota of valuation. The coin is the two-sided thing you are battling with here. Values and principles are quite likely two-sides of the same coin?

No one has explained how it is logical for an AN person to say “thou shalt not procreate” but, after a person breaks that rule and gets pregnant, how they can also say “it is permissible to get an abortion.” That would mean, it is wrong to create a newly conceived fetus, because that causes suffering, but once you create one, you can still kill it. Where is the internal logic there? — Fire Ologist

This is precisely the kind of problem looked at in the issue of nonidentity. I do not know of any good argument as to when an abortion should or should not happen - but that is a separate but interesting comparison to consider when untangling the differences in such positions.

I am not going to put words in their mouth only give an honest reply to your point.

So if life only had a little bit of suffering in it, for everyone, the AN argument would fail? That’s not what Schop is saying. And it opens the whole AN argument up to attacks regarding the value of suffering. — Fire Ologist

It would still not address the issue of nonidentity and your 'Right' to bring someone into the world who may or may not suffer to some larger or smaller degree.

This is because the valuation attached to existence put forward by the AN is that of 'asymmetry'. The absence of 'suffering' is GOOD while the absence of 'pleasure' is NOT BAD (rather than GOOD). It is a basic aggregation aligned with the unpredictability of how a human's life will be. This is why an AN may say 'Why gamble?' because to them it is a little like this scenario:

1) You do not care about money AT ALL.
2) You are given money and then have to gamble with it.
3) Two possible outcomes:

A) You GAIN more money.
OR
B) You LOSE the money.

All you then have to do is replace MONEY with 'Pain' and then 'Pleasure' to see how there is an imbalance. Not having either to begin with is more satisfactory than gambling.

If you could guarantee that every lived life would be basically full of 'pleasure' to an optimal level for everyone then I cannot see how an AN could argue against such a scenario. If there is LITERALLY no scenario they or you can present that is for procreation then they are stuck.

On the flip side can you imagine certain extreme scenarios where you would look more favorably on the AN position?

Of course not. It is up to you to bother with the argument or not and live as you wish to live.

The AN argument has weight to it. The utilitarian positions have weight to them too, So what? It is our pleasure to attend to them or not.

No one does over any reasonable extension of time. The point is to understand that someone else 'measures' the valuation between 'pain' and 'no pain' as a meaningful point in this kind of argument (which it is).

In the sociopolitical sphere I think a decent part of this idea stemmed from a staunch opposition to 'Pro Lifers'. I think there are many more fundamentalists at the Pro end of the spectrum though! :D

If all the people who were thinking about procreating asked “what ought I do? What’s the right thing to do? Should I procreate?” The AN believer would say to everyone “You shouldn’t procreate because that would cause suffering.” — Fire Ologist

Yes, but they are entitled to their opinions and it makes sense to listen to their arguments for what they are not you think they are.

It is not really all that complicated you just have to break it down and understand that they have particular views on responsibility to future beings. You may not hold these views but you can consider them as if you did to some degree and come to a reasonable understanding of them.

As something of a comparison let us assume we all agree that polluting rivers is a bad thing. If some factory manager dumped toxins into the river (il)legally knowing the potential effect on the offspring of people who happen to drink this water we would regard this as a pretty terrible thing. The AN extends this further, but at least you can begin to understand why we want to STOP the factory manager from doing what they did, yet we would not decide to BAN the construction of all factories that could potentially pollute the river.

Understanding the general direction of the argument does not mean you need to adhere to it nor agree with it. You can still follow the path and see what is of use.

People who talk about AN from a radical position are obviously radicals, and radicals tend not to listen. I do not really waste my time on them as they do a good enough job of pushing others away from themselves to the point I see no point in engaging directly.

NOTE: To anyone jumping down my throat saying I am misrepresenting AN. No, sorry. This is not what I am doing. I am, and have, broken it down to the CORE elements that those not familiar with AN need to understand. I have no intention of exhibiting every possibility because they ALL come down to no 'suffering' being good where no 'pleasure' is not bad (asymmetry argument and the surrounding issues of utilitarianism/consequentialism and metaphysical values) and nonidentity (surrounding items like individual rights, responsibility and in particular whether or not we can say we have a 'Right' to procreate regarding potential beings combined with inevitability of 'suffering').

AN is fashioning a new law. AN says to me “because your life is mostly suffering, you should not procreate.” AN is the tell all.

I’m just saying to Mr. AN enthusiast, “procreate if you want or don’t procreate if you don’t want, but telling all of us, including me, not to procreate based on the fact that all life, including mine, is on balance over full of suffering, doesn’t make sense to me at all.” My kids love life too much. One’s a nurse (surrounded by suffering), one is a welder (gets burned everyday), and one is a struggling artist (who needs a job). They are all glad I “inflicted” life on them. — Fire Ologist

The AN position is not this. Some idiots may think they have an unshakable argument, but in truth it is just one of many arguments and has valid points to consider.

If anyone here is such an Extreme AN (to the point where they would enforce this by law) then they are not really understanding the point regular ANs make.

I summed up the main points someone trying to understand the AN position need to understand. The AN position is perfectly reasonable and does raise some intriguing questions about personal responsibility and how we measure the value of life (which is clearly quite a subjective matter!).

Not necessarily.

See Nozick's thought experiment involving The Experience Machine.

It was created as an argument against hedonism but does reveal enough to show the importance of experiencing reality (with its suffering) over pleasurable experiences that are disconnected from reality.

Well, no. It is not that complicated at all.

The nuances of specific situations make such decisions difficult to measure against each other for obvious reasons, but the underlying principle is pretty straight forward.

This is why I was puzzled how anyone can 'change their mind' about this. It is like saying I have changed my mind about hedonism being about pursuing pleasure. It is doesn't matter. That is true, so your opposing opinion on the matter is irrelevant - there is no 'mind changing' only agree or disagreement with the principle.

The point of the Principle is to weigh the good against the bad in outcome AND the burden of proof to lie on those wanting to carry out the act, correct?

Which still leaves me asking what this thread is about? Consequentialism is necessarily entangled with utilitarianism, they do not exist in a separate voids.

The Principle of Double Effect is utilitarian. What is there is agree or disagree about other than the overall balance of outcome (which is precisely what the PoDE is describing)?

Nietzsche's moral philosophy is that there is no morality (in the traditional sense) but, rather, we create our own values and subject ourselves to our own created moral law. — Bob Ross

He was correct as far as I can see. As for "happiness" ... I cannot recall him focusing on that at all (other than in a dismissive light I imagine?).

100%

It is one of the most backwards things I have ever read. I think he is confusing Existential Ethics with Nietzsche maybe?

@Bob Ross The general existential view of of ethics is based on creating your own virtues in light of an absurd existence. You seem to be conflating this with one or two cherry-picked points made by Nietzsche maybe?

Confusion is all I got from reading the OP. I only managed to get a few paragraphs in before giving up.

The form of moral anti-realism taking prominence, is this “Nietzschien kind”. Not only is it bad for a human to think they can acquire happiness through fulfilling their desires but this sort of thought leads to the crumbling of society into arbitrary, narcissistic power-struggles. None of which is good for people. — Bob Ross

I am not sure what you mean here? Nietzsche talked about acquiring happiness through fulfilling desires?

I would side with the whole Logos position from a morally sceptical standpoint.

I do actually find it REALLY hard to figure out what kind of question you are asking as I am not exactly a big believer in the terms 'justice' or 'fairness' in the world. What is, is. The world is what it is.

In terms of societal norms and such - not The World - I can say with some conviction that many people do not want justice or fairness. The reason for this being self-interest. This can present itself as someone acting to gain whilst disregarding others, or someone simply avoid the weight of responsibility.

A problem with the terms justice and fairness is many equate them with ideas like equality and human rights. These have inbuilt problems when faced with the reality of existence. Then what it boils down to is people expressing feelings and attitudes rather than presenting factual claims.

The Birth of Tragedy is where he started, so that might be a good place to get stuck in. If you do you will need to check out Aristotle's The Poetics for a better idea of where he was coming from though (it is a short though, so not a huge burden).

How about first on my own, allow myself to explore parallels that might be buried by both the author and his disciples/critics, deliberately or neglegently, then see what the experts say, and, read again? — ENOAH

That is ALWAYS my approach. It does take considerably more effort though. Meaning at least read something firsthand they have done before approaching them through secondary sources.

Nietzsche is a good example of exactly how much you can get out of self-study. I was reading Beyond Good and Evil then quickly realised I needed to read The Genealogy of Morals and then Birth of Tragedy ... then I realised I needed to read Aristotle's poetics. Only then could I fully grasp Beyond Good and Evil because I had a better understanding of where his ideas developed from and followed the direct line of thinking back to its origins.

I very much doubt I would have gained a better understand by reading secondary sources on Beyond Good and Evil.

Husserl is someone whose works has only recently been unearthed. He wrote an exceptional amount much of which never saw the light of day until recently.

What he says in his earlier works he moves away from in later works. His views are progressed and refined so taking something like Ideas as a comprehensive representation of his thoughts can be extremely misleading (and in some cases flat out wrong).

Crisis was the last thing he wrote but he died because its completion.

He is one of the few cases where I would say you need to read overviews of others who have done the scholarly work because it is a lifetime's work to study everything he did with any rigor. I myself have read overviews of Ideas, have read Crisis with rigor, and got halfway through Logical Investigations sometime ago (so need to restart that when I get a chance).

I do believe Heidegger did a good job of explicating some of what Husserl was pointing at, but in general feel quite strongly that he went off in the wrong direction (likely due to the differences they had in background - one logical and science based, the other more historic and religious). That is just my opinion though. I am also suspicious that Heidegger partly lifted the vast majority of his ideas from Husserl (there is apparently evidence of this from Husserl's unpublished work predating Being & Time) and doubled down on this given the good chance that Husserl's work would be effectively wiped from history due to the political climate. It may appear that Husserl adopts some terminology from Heidegger in Crisis but (as I mentioned) there is some evidence that the opposite may well be the case for some of the terminological jargon used by Heidegger.

In short, Heidegger leaned hard into the linguistic turn and Husserl warned about this language focus as potentially misguiding the phenomenological cause (as a science of consciousness). Husserl was very much against psychologism as was Heidegger ... somewhere though there was a quite severe disconnect between their views and Heidegger (as obtuse as he was) did a far better job of expressing his in a more tangible manner most of the time.

If your hand is burning, it IS an ethical issue. All that makes an issue ethical is the some value-at-risk or in-play. — Constance

This makes ethics essentially a meaningless term if it can mean anything. I cannot agree nor see the point in pretending to do this.

Either way, if you happen to write an in-depth paper about this I would interested enough to read it.

Thanks again for your time

You are overextending quite a lot there! Haha!

No one is an AN to that degree at all. That is not AN. I lost my 3000+ word essay on this subject unfortunately (not that I think you would have enjoyed reading it anyway!) :D

Made a brief summary here:

Antinatalism is based on a two main areas of contention. That is the philosophical problem of nonidentity and application metaphysical valuations.

NONIDENTITY

Firstly, the nonidentity problem is outlined quite simply in ethical terms as how and if we can claim to pass moral judgements that have consequences on persons who do not, as yet, exist. An instance of this would be akin to how we attend our environment with the thought to hand as to how it can effect future generations.

For instance, a culture that prioritises trees, viewing them as sacred perhaps, may also use them to build housing. This would disrupt future generations if they neglected the native forests by effectively destroying them all to build more houses or for use in other sacred ceremonies.

Here we can see a clear neglect of persons who do not yet exist (nonidentity). In contemporary terms this is often equated to how humans have damaged the natural world, thus leaving future generations with future problems to solve they had no direct hand in causing.

Here one antinatalist (AN) argument ensues. This is that we have no right to bring life into the world that will suffer due to none of its own doing. The new life is not responsible for its own coming into being, yet it does come into being. How can this be considered in light of those making the moral decision to have children? Is this morally irresponsible or not? If so to some degree each way, then to what degree and how can we rightly measure this?

Regardless of any personal analysis of this situation we can understand that given certain beliefs about this scenario we can come to see the reasoning behind someone siding with the AN argument.

Some will see justification in talking about the rights of nonidentity persons while others may find this too difficult, or impossible, to hold. The degree to which this can or cannot be justified is tied up in other initial ethics/moral stances (be this deontological, utilitarian, nihilistic, etc.,.).

THE METAPHYSIC OF ASYMMETRY

This perspective is an interesting one regarding moral axiology. Let us assume that measuring such values of human experience can be made in a meaningful way to begin with. This argument puts forward the proposition the probable chance of ‘harm’ and ‘benefit’ (let us use these terms as positive and negative aspects of human experience).

A) If someone (nonidentity) does not come into existence then there is No Harm and No Benefit.

B) If someone does come into existence then Harm is guaranteed (on some level) and so is Benefit (to some degree).

The argument goes as follows …

For A, No Harm is Good and No Benefit is Not Bad.

For B, Harm is Bad and Benefit is Good.

Looking at instance A), not existing is Better than existing because there is an asymmetry between Harm and Benefit, where lack of harm is strove for and peaks in Good in its negation, lack of Benefit is Not Bad and so neutral. No Harm either way.

Looking at instance B), existing is guaranteed to cause Harms and Benefits are not guaranteed to outweigh Harms, even though in some cases they may.

Conclusion: Not existing guarantees No Harm caused. Existing guarantees Harm caused AND cannot guarantee Benefits outweighing guaranteed Harms.

If then the goal is to reduce Harm then it is effectively a gamble when we create new life. The nonidentity person may have a Good OR Bad life, whereas if such a person never came to be no more Harm will be caused to such a person for obvious reasons.

Now to return to the problem of nonidentity …

MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

The question is now how anyone has the moral right to procreate given a belief in reducing Harm following from the principle outlined in the argument of asymmetry?

No one asked to be born (obviously!), but someone did choose to bring life into the world. It is a solid argument for AN to say no to procreation here if they believe in the reduction of Harm as a priority. It is not faulty thinking following that particular line of reasoning with those particular views.

There are numerous other AN arguments that are basically little more than weighing the scales regarding future benefits and detriments to living being (and nonidentity potentials too) that add different themes to the argument. The common ones are Overpopulation, Dystopian World, Inequality, etc.,. These are more or less decoration to the core elements of the AN position I have laid out.

There is certainly weight to argument. Like every other ethical position though it does not present a convincing absolute moral law, but creates dilemmas for those serious about having children who wish to explore the ethical implications of doing so, for their child, other children, their community and surroundings, and all other manner of issues too.

NOTE: There was a another major point I had in the essay regarding ethics in general and Self-interest Vs Common good. Way more involved for that though so omitted it. Hopefully the above helps you see the weight, and use, of the argument presented by the AN position (whether you follow it or not).