??? No, obviously not. If the person isn't even referring to speech, how would it make any speech acts criminal? — Terrapin Station

So calling someone an "asshole" would not be a criminal speech act (we'll assume it's demeaning)?

So would you say that walking was a criminal act, because it was a constituent element of a guy walking into a bank, robbing it, then walking away? — DingoJones

No, by constituent element I mean something that is part of the actual elements of the offense. Most definitions of robbery are not concerned with your mode of locomotion.

Because it's going to be someone's opinion of just what is problematic or not, just what should be illegal or not, etc. What one individual would call "criminal insults" might have little to do with what someone else would consider "criminal insults," and someone might have criteria for what they're naming "criminal insults" that doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with speech. Which would mean they'd be using the term very unusually, probably, but people can do that. — Terrapin Station

Ok then, let's say that a criminal insult is defined as speech or another communicative act that demeans the person addressed or identified as the target of the act. Where demeans would have another definition which doesn't need to concern us.

This law would limit speech, make some speech acts criminal, correct?

The whole idea is that I wouldn't have "criminal threatening" where you can just intuit what I'd consider a problem. That's the whole reason for the detailed list of criteria I gave. That whole thing is what I have in mind, which each part of it a necessary component. — Terrapin Station

I understand that all parts of the definition need to be fulfilled. But this is true for currently existing laws concerning speech as well. Very few of those will make speech acts illegal regardless of circumstances (comedic acts will almost always be excluded, for example). Yet all these laws are considered limitations on speech. So the same would be true for your proposed "criminal threatening" law.

It would depend on what the person's "criminal insult" criteria would be. We'd have to ask them. Maybe they'd have detailed criteria, most of which don't have anything to do with speech, and where speech wouldn't even be necessary. — Terrapin Station

Why would it depend on that? I don't see the logic here. If a speech act is, in any combination, constituent element of a crime, it means that this speech act in those circumstances is therefore a criminal act.

No, it isn't. The whole thing is, which doesn't even require speech. — Terrapin Station

Insults also don't necessarily require speech. Yet if insulting someone was a crime, it would make certain speech acts (like calling someone an Idiot) criminal.

It can include speech, but again, the speech is not at all sufficient for it to be a problem. Hence me spelling out all of the criteria. — Terrapin Station

But the point is there are circumstances (e.g. pointing a gun at someone) where speech can turn into a crime. It's not just speech, but nevertheless the speech is criminal.

?? But I'm defining what I'd name "criminal threatening." Nothing less than what I'm describing would count. That's why I'm spelling all of that stuff out. Those are the criteria. Think of it like a checklist. — Terrapin Station

And one of these criteria is that a threat is made (by someone, towards someone else, is implied).

It doesn't require speech. I make that explicit in my criteria. — Terrapin Station

But the threat can be speech. You also made that explicit. And in that case, the speech is a constituent part of the criminal act. It's not just accidental circumstance.

So this, for example:

"it's an immediate, 'physical' threat in the sense of potential victims being within the range of the threatening instruments (whether just one's body, or weapons, or causally connected remote devices or substances, etc.), which are actual and not simply claimed,"

Is explicitly describing something that's not speech. — Terrapin Station

True, but then it's also not someone threatening someone else. It's a dangerous situation. Commonly also called a "threat". The two usages of the word are distinct.

It seems weird that a lot of arguments here are just doubling down on an objection that makes no sense in light of what someone is actually saying. — Terrapin Station

It seems weird that despite the fact that your own definition references speech under section a), you're now claiming that it has nothing to do with speech.

Are you saying threatening someone doesn't require communication?

I think you can say the risk of harm is 0 in that situation. It is trivially true that if a certain person doesn't exist that person is not risked any harm (Because he doesn't exist). — khaled

I don't think that statement is trivially true. I think it's false due to a category error. Just repeating our respective claims here doesn't get us anywhere.

I understand you think a deterministic universe kinda makes people exist "in the future", but this kind of thinking doesn't work when we assume we have a choice whether or not to have children.

Again, I don't see a reason to treat an action that WILL risk harming someone any differently based on the fact that they don't exist at the time said action took place. — khaled

But there is a difference when said action created the other person in the first place. Because we cannot assume the other person already exists while also assuming we are choosing whether or not they exist.

You don't seem to think so but you don't take the opposite stance of saying that that fact matters in a significant way. If you're agnostic about this general principle there is nothing I can do to convince you. It is the principle the entire argument rests upon. — khaled

I am not sure what general principle you refer to here. When I say I am agnostic, what I mean is that none of the arguments brought up so far convince me, but I have not actually fully explored the question on my own terms.

Again, criminal threatening as I describe it isn't a speech act. — Terrapin Station

You're clearly describing speech acts. With specific circumstances, sure, but telling you to repudiate your views is speech, regardless of whether or not I am holding a gun while saying it. It's speech that is usually considered to fall outside of protected speech, but I was under the impression that you reject that distinction.

It can be accompanied by a speech act--as can murdering someone, raping someone, etc. But the speech act is neither sufficient nor even necessary. — Terrapin Station

Unlike with rape or murder, speech is a central elements when making threats. Indeed one can understand implied threats as a form of nonverbal speech.

There are speech acts that are threats, but what I'm describing isn't just, or even necessarily, a speech act. — Terrapin Station

But it seems to follow that "speech acts can never be illegal" is not a tenable position then. The question that follows is what benefit does a dogmatic adherence to "free speech absolutism" have?

Yes, actually, because you can see the data yourself with your own two eyes.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2019/DORIAN_graphics.php?product=wind_probs_34_F120 — NOS4A2

I can indeed. Can you see why the National Wheather service thought it necessary to respond to Trumps tweet that Alabama would be "hit (much) harder"?

I posted this earlier in the thread, but here it is again:

Threatening anyone should only be a crime when it's an immediate, "physical" threat in the sense of potential victims being within the range of the threatening instruments (whether just one's body, or weapons, or causally connected remote devices or substances, etc.), which are actual and not simply claimed, so that (a) either a verbal (or written, etc.) or body language or weaponry threat is explicitly made/performed, (b) the threat is reasonably considered either a serious premeditation to commit nonconsensual violence or something with negligent culpability should nonconsensual physical damage result, and (c) the threatened party couldn't reasonably escape or evade the threatened actions should the threatener decide or negligently carry them out at that moment. — Terrapin Station

OK. But we do agree that the threat itself is still a speech act?

It's simply an intuitive stipulation based on my dispositions.

With anything less than force a la physical causality, the person could have decided to do something different. — Terrapin Station

Right. But that leaves only physically manipulating someone's limbs. Not a very common scenario in practice.

But you did, in your previous post, state that you'd still have laws against criminal threats. How do those relate to your speech position?

The NOAA has confirmed that Trump was in fact correct. — NOS4A2

I can guarantee you that no-one who isn't already a die-hard Trumpist will believe that. It's very obvious from this side of the ideological divide that someone in the NOAA caved to political pressure.

For you, on the other hand, it's further vindication of the idea that there is a witch hunt.

The question is, do you think there is any way these two versions of reality can ever be reconciled?

If a mental state results from a previous mental state, going all the way back to the first brain state, like when a baby is looking into a mirror for example and begins the first stages of "thought," is there a primary state which is not the result of prior mental states? if so where does the information come from for that primary state? — rlclauer

Well the mind runs on some substrate. When the mind forms, it will inherit some information, along with it's basic functions, from the reality it is formed in. We can assume, for the sake of the argument, that it's properly represented by genetics forming the biological brain.

What is the definition of politics we're using here? Do we mean politics in an institutional sense, or just action to accomplish our goals?

You certainly base decisions to do things on speech, sure.

What matters to me when we're talking about ethics, proposing legislation, etc., is the fact that you decided to do something and were not forced to do it. — Terrapin Station

Since there is a spectrum from influence to coercion, that implies that there is a minimum threshold of control you need to have over someone else's actions in order for this control to matter, correct?

What are your principles for deciding what amount of control is sufficient for ethical or legal considerations?

I am ignorant of so many things, I need to be judicious in where I allocate my time. I did give you the opportunity to help out your fellow man by alleviating their ignorance. Alas, you refuse.

I’m not sure why you’d want to take my word for it. — NOS4A2

I'd take a lot of things over watching Trump talk for half an hour. So far that seems the only thing he's been doing. Is that what you meant by good job? That he gave a good talk?

You can hear it from the horse’s mouth by simply watching the update put out by the Whitehouse. You won’t find it on CNN. — NOS4A2

You apparently did watch it, so asking you is quicker.

all to disguise to their viewers that Trump is actually doing a damn good job with these hurricanes — NOS4A2

What is Trump doing "with" these Hurricanes?

Yes. Are the conditions now unfavorable? — TheMadFool

Yes, extremely so. Because the planet is already full of life. Any new lifeform would have to compete with what's already present, and since the existing life has a massive headstart, any upstarts have no chance.

I think that as long as there are significant political forces in the UK pushing for a more conciliatory position with regards to the EU, the EU leaders are unlikely to cut them off. Also: The longer the Brexit chaos drags on, the stronger the chilling effect on other leave movements.

Externally, if one could see it from the outside, which one never can, the block universe is 4 distances with no time or change, — PoeticUniverse

How do we have information on how things look "from the outside"? That seems impossible to me.

Assuming for the sake of argument that there is "internal deliberation," where does the information come from to initiate the deliberation process? Are there biological factors which influence the mental states, which are a function of brain activity (presumably)? — rlclauer

The information comes from previous mind-states. Whether these are reducible to brain states is part of the question.

So the will of the people does not include the will of the constituents? — NOS4A2

No. I am not sure how it even makes sense to speak of one will including another.

Constituents aren’t people? Maybe I’m wrong. — NOS4A2

Indeed, maybe you are. For example, did you know that certain combinations of words can have different meanings, even if the individual words refer to similar things?

The "will of the people" and "the will of their constituents" are different phrases. Are you telling me they are the same?

I don't see how deep differences in the life of the parent in one case versus the other justifies dismissing all concern about the interests of the child. Your life would be fundamentally different if you were to choose to do any number of things, say become a serial killer. That isn't what gives you a right. — petrichor

I am not saying that it justifies dismissing other concerns. Rights are rarely absolute. What I am saying is that having children is, initially, only about two people and what they do with their bodies. In order to justify limitation on that, you'd need to have good reasons. I don't think these reasons have been established yet.

I take your point. This highlights an important difference I think. Let's be careful though. To phrase it as "eliminate children" sounds as if we are destroying an already existing child, when we are simply talking about not having one. Let's instead call it "preventing human experience." So we'd be preventing human experience rather than improving it. And let's not forget that by not reproducing, we aren't concerned only with a child, but a human at all stages of life, cradle to grave, as well as all the impacts they'll have on others. — petrichor

I'll admit the choice of words was not entirely unbiased. ;)

One might respond to your point though by saying that we might indeed be improving the overall experience of the universe as a whole, as we might be reducing its overall suffering. If we don't reproduce, there isn't a person whose experience can be said to be better by virtue of their non-existence. But I'd argue that a human experience is just part of the overall experiential condition of the world at large. One could say that there is less suffering in the world, so we are improving the experiential condition of the world by reducing the total suffering that happens in it. — petrichor

This seems like a very weird argument to me. The world, or the universe, are not human beings. To talk about the "overall suffering of the world/universe" sounds like nonsense to me. We only know about human suffering. We can make guesses about other animals, but those are fraught with problems. Whether or not the world at large has any "experiential condition" is unknown to us and therefore so is whether or not we will "Improve" it by going away. Whatever "improve" might even mean in this context.

When I imagine a universe without humans, all I see is a dead universe. The only things that matter in the universe are the things that matter to humans (and human-like intelligences).

Interesting. Do we really need to treat it as non-deterministic? Or do we just need to treat it as probabilistic from a merely epistemic standpoint, where we are simply dealing with our knowledge uncertainty? I am not sure this would make a difference though. — petrichor

Uncertainity would only matter within one of the parallel timelines. When we make a decision, we treat this decision as actually altering the fate of the universe. There is no other way to evaluate options during decision making. Since morality is supposed to provide the rules for that decision making, it must therefore treat the different decisions as free, which means they'll start totally new and independent causal chains.

But you'll still be held responsible for trying to kill the person, for intending their death, even if the death doesn't come to pass. It isn't as if there is no responsibility. It isn't purely consequentialist. It is a bit of both. Consider the case of a person who pours what they think is sugar into someone's coffee, and that person ends up dead, the "sugar" having actually been poison. Do we hold them responsible? We don't because we know they didn't have any malicious intent. We treat it as a pure accident. If, on the other hand, we can prove that someone put something in someone's coffee that they expected to kill them, when it was just sugar after all, we'll charge them with attempted murder. If there is a case where there was some uncertainty as to contents, and someone poured it into the coffee anyway, risking poisoning them, we'd hold them accountable for that too. — petrichor

I think you're mixing two things here, responsibility and intent. What I mean by responsibility is responsibility for events, for states of affairs. Responsibility is the connection between a subject and an objective state. This requires the objective state to exist.

Intent is something that matters for judging an action, not an outcome. Often, for exmaple in criminal law, both of these elements are required to establish guilt - your responsibility for the outcome nd your intent to bring it about. Intent itself is not usually sufficient - praying for someone to die will not make you responsible for their plane crashing, and you won't be guilty for it.

How exactly moral considerations work depends on what system of moral philosophy you ascribe to. I personally think only action and intent matter, not the outcome. Utilitarianists would differ.

Are you saying that pointing a gun at a person and pulling the trigger in itself is not wrong until harm has actually resulted? There is no responsibility in the very moment of deciding to kill someone? There is no wrong in the intent? — petrichor

Attempted murder is still morally wrong, and also still a crime. So no, I am not saying that.

I applaud you! It is so rare for anyone in discussions like these to make such acknowledgements! Refreshing! We should all take it as an example to emulate. I believe, as Socrates suggested, that we should see dialogue as a way for us to both move closer to truth, not as a contest with a winner and loser. If both parties grow in understanding, we both win. If you help me see a fault in my thinking, I should thank you. You haven't injured me. Quite the reverse! — petrichor

Thanks. I think that, quite apart form anti-natalism, the question of what moral weight to give to future persons is an important topic that doesn't seem to have been given much thought in the past.

The role of an opposition party is to question the ruling party, not to oppose the will of their own constituents. — NOS4A2

Right, so? I didn't say anything about opposing the will of their constituents.

They are elected to represent their constituents, not to represent their own wants and desires. — NOS4A2

And? What does that have to do with the topic?

I know, but it's not like arguing with facts is going to work with @NOS4A2.

Remainers like to pay lip-service to democracy while opposing the will of the people at all costs. — NOS4A2

Opposing the "will of the people" is part of democracy. That's what opposition parties are for.

Denying a general election on the topic seems to me to avoid the will of the people. — NOS4A2

If elections represent the will of the people, then the actions of MPs do, too. They are elected.

Well said. Freedom is not to be found in the list of a priori conceptions, that from which as you say, the very structure of the world is imposed by the mind. But causality is on the list, alongside possibility, necessity, existence, and so on. — Mww

But isn't it also the case that the concept of freedom is necessary to arrive at an understanding of the world, or parts of it, since without freedom providing starting points, causal chains run into an infinite regress / first cause problem?

And while I agree it does not follow from that, that freedom is not real, I hesitate to agree that freedom is still an equally valid way to structure reality, for in which case it would seem to be in direct conflict with that which does so structure, and from which it is itself excluded. — Mww

I see your point. To equate freedom and causality as structure may be somewhat imprecise. Freedom is a constituent part of our internal, "actor" perspective. It's necessary for us to make choices.

Nevertheless, because from some P it does not follow that freedom is not real, says nothing about how freedom is real, beyond the mere existence of the conception of it. — Mww

True. My position is mostly intended as a refutation of the "freedom is just an illusion" argument. As to the metaphysical reality of freedom, I am not sure whether it's ultimately even relevant.

...it would need to be determined what freedom is, in what manner or fashion it is real, in order to establish the equal validity for what it does. — Mww

What I mean by equally valid is that you're equally likely to be mistaken about the reality of causality than about the reality of freedom.

Could you elaborate on what you mean when you say "freedom?" I want to make sure I understand clearly the basics of the case you are laying out — rlclauer

The ability of an actor to decide between two or more courses of action, based on that actors internal reasoning.

That seems possibly tautological. Justification and entitlement. Are they separate? If so, does one depend on the other? And if one is prior to the other, does the one always entail the other? I am not sure.

If a person normally is considered to have a right to privacy, I suppose you could argue that violating someone's privacy is justified if that person is seriously violating the rights of others, as for example in the case of a child pornographer. But here it is the rights of the other party that justify the violation or reduction of this person's rights. But to say that others are justified in invading this person's privacy might just be another way of saying that they have a right in this case to invade. — petrichor

It's a question of how you conceptualize exceptions to a rule. You could treat them as extensions of the rule, in which case the rule ends up very long and complex. Or you could treat them as individual rules, which has the advantage of keeping the original rule clear. Logically, I don't think there is a difference.

I agree that creating something is not the same as owning. But that doesn't quite capture what I was saying.

Rights exist where something is thought to be properly owned. I suggest that the reason people feel that they have a right to have children is that they have a sense that their children are theirs, that they belong to them and not to the larger community, and so it is theirs to decide the fate of these children. But, this is in conflict with the idea that the child is another agent with interests, one with rights, that the children in some sense belong to themselves. Children are not things. This isn't a matter of property rights. — petrichor

This seems a bit too constructed to me. I think the simpler explanation is that people feel that their biological ability to have children is theirs to command, and that life with children is so fundamentally different from life without children that no-one should decide for them whether to do one or the other.

I'd say that the old idea that children are property is in conflict with the new idea that children have full status as people. In the old way of thinking, there was no real concept of child abuse. This has changed. "Your" children are not yours to do with as you please. The community will intervene and we mostly all agree that this is sometimes justified. — petrichor

Right, but notably the intervention is for the benefit of the child. Anti-natalism cannot go that route because it wants to eliminate children, not improve the lives of children.

I see this argument made often and I find it questionable. The children you create do end up existing. And once they exist, they have rights and interests. Take a step back and look at it more objectively in spacetime. There is simply a relation here between two existing beings, regardless of the fact that they are temporally separated. What makes that temporal separation such that it eliminates responsibility and consideration of rights? — petrichor

Temporal separation is special because when we engage in moral considerations, we have to treat the universe as non-deterministic with regard to our actions. There is no other way to make decisions. So, in moral terms, the future is not determined, but consists of an arbitrary number of parallel timelines. A single causal chain exists only for past events. That's also the reason that responsibility only travels backwards.

Something you do has a causal relationship to their condition and impacts on their interests. Sure, the child doesn't exist at the time of your conceiving them, but your action does ultimately have an impact on an existing being. Once the child exists, it can easily be said that you are responsible for their existence. When you release the string on a bow, aren't you responsible for the eventual arrival of the arrow at its target? You are responsible for the child's eventual existence even at the time of the conceiving act. — petrichor

Obviously, I am responsible for the current existence of my children due to my past act of conceiving them. But, crucially, at the time when I was making the deicision, two possible timelines existed: One with children of mine and one without. I am only responsible for the existance of the child once it does actually exist, since before that there was no causal chain linking me and the child.

After all, aren't all consequences separated in time from their causes? If you deny that a cause is responsible for its effect because the effect doesn't yet exist, you end up denying all forms of responsibility. — petrichor

Responsibility is only ever ascertained after the fact though. There is no need to establish responsibility for effects that don't yet exist because they might ultimately not come to pass. If you attempt to kill someone, but your victim is still alive at the time of the trial, no matter how tenously, you will not be tried for murder, but attempted murder.

We could get into all sorts of interesting territory here by arguing that I am not the same person now that I was in the past and that my responsibility to my future self involves a relation to a person with rights who does not yet exist. All future states of any sentient being could be said to involve consideration of someone not yet existing. — petrichor

Arguably, but the difference is that for these beings, there is no future timeline where they never existed in the first place. So moral consideration do at least need to take note of their current existance and the fact that it will continue, however briefly, into the future.

This idea that not-yet-existing beings have no rights would seem to prevent us from considering the state of the planet as we are leaving it for future generations. Are we wrong to give their interests some consideration by not ruining everything for them? — petrichor

This is an interesting question, and one which makes me dislike the implications of my own position. But, for the record, I find it difficult to establish, without doubt, that we have a responsibility towards future generations living on this planet. I would like to have an ironclad argument to that extent, but I am not currently able to think of one.

Compared to the anti-natalist position, the advantage here is that we are not dealing with a personal decision to have children, but the likelihood that future generations will exist in some form, regardless of our own decisions. That at least eliminates the problem of having a timeline without moral subjects at all.

do you know of valuable/good arguments which defend that it is permissible to eat meat? By that I don't meat that factory farming is permissible, but that eating free range meat is, for instance. — BerthMania

I have not checked any research on that, but it seems at least plausible that very limited consumption of meat might be morally permissible to make efficient use of existing grasslands and deal with overpopulations of some wild animals.

I don't really see how this changes the argument. If you aren't alive, you don't exist.

Let me put this another way: if you want to say it's "less risk" you need to be able to quantify the risk. So at least in theory you have to able to say "X imposes risk of magnitude 50, while Y imposes risk of magnitude 30, so Y is less risky than X". The problem is that you cannot make such a comparison. If a person isn't alive, their risk of harm isn't 0, it's [ ], an empty set. There is nothing to compare with.

The point is one alternative means no one experiences harm and no one is deprived of good (because there is no actual person who exists). As I've seen on here before, there are no "ghost babies" wailing for existence. The other alternative is someone is born and guaranteed will experience some harm.

Non-existence- no one is harmed/no one is deprived = win/win. The idea that someone could have had more good experiences or whatnot if born matters not, in this procreational scenario. The risk khaled is talking about is mitigated and no actual person is alive prior to birth, losing out on anything. — schopenhauer1

But this argument cuts both ways. If the "good" is of no consequence because a non-existant person looses nothing, then the harm is also of no consequence, because the non-existant person gains nothing either. Put another way, you don't loose out on non-existance if you live a life full of harm.

True, but not having a child avoids the risk of having a child who lives a life that isn't worth living. Although that risk is vastly outweighed, so, in the vast majority of cases, this risk doesn't matter as much as he suggests. — S

I'd agree that the parents avoid that risk. Not the child though, because there isn't any child that has avoided the risk.

It has nothing to do with pleasantness. Is it or is it not true that existence has a greater risk of harm than non existence? It is true. That is the definition of risky — khaled

No, it is false, because it commits the same category error. Existence is not a risk compared to non-existance. There is no grounds for any comparison.

1- Having children risks disasterous consequences for the child
2- Actions that risk disasterous consequences for others are wrong when a less risky alternative is possible in cases where consent is unavailable
3- Having children is wrong because a less risky alternative is possible (not having children) and consent isn't available (due to lack of time machine) — khaled

Nonexistence is not a "less risky" alternative for the child though. Non-existance is not more or less pleasant than existence. That's a category error.

I didn’t say it was. I was going to go from there and expand the principle but then you insisted i give examples of an ethical system where genetically modifying children is bad. Now I ask you to find me one where it is considered good. — khaled

I assumed you meant creating children specifically for this "experiment". But assuming is always dangerous. So perhaps you could make this thought experiment a bit more concrete? What exactly is being done, and with what motivation?

ahhh, you were talking about antinatalism in general. You’re right, there aren’t many ethical systems in support of antinatalism but I was specifically asking for an ethical system that states genetically modifying children to suffer is ok. Utilitarianism would not be an example of those. — khaled

Only if the children would have been born regardless. In that case Utilitarianism would work, but that's not helpful for the anti-natalist argument.

Here is the relevant quote:

So, essentially utilitarianism? The problem I see with this argument is that it relies on there being two alternatives, and one leads to less suffering/more utility for the people involved. But when we are making the decision to create those people in the first place, there are no such alternatives. There is one timeline without people and one timeline with people, and you cannot compare the relative utility of these timelines because for one timeline it's an empty set. — Echarmion

I think you misread. I didn't claim there is any ethical system that allows genetically modifying children to suffer. When you asked for ethical systems that claim the modification should be wrong I was having trouble thinking of any that find it acceptable. So I asked you to name one that finds it acceptable instead — khaled

You claimed that "almost every" ethical system concludes that doing so is wrong. So name some of those. Why do you need counter examples? I already pointed out how Utilitarianism would have a problem with that conclusion. Kantian deontology also doesn't seem to me to offer a neat solution. So, again, where are these many ethical systems that solve this problem so clearly?

When did I say you weren't allowed? — khaled

This wordplay is getting tiresome. You clearly want me to support my position, even though my position is agnostic.

It isn't. I just thought you'd think genetically modifying children to suffer is wrong because it's simply sadistic. But if you don't think pure sadism is wrong and still need more convincing I can't do that. — khaled

Sadism is a motivation, not a consequence. One that you are bringing up for the first time now. Is doing something solely for sadistic purposes wrong? I'd say yes, but that doesn't have anything to do with babies or genetic modification. It's purely the moral standing of sadism as a motivation.