Although you may agree, that healthy people (those with good immune systems) in general, don't die from covid, they nonetheless CONTRIBUTE (shed) MORE virus back into the environment than they REMOVE (stop;kill), and therefore should practice social distancing to the same extent as vulnerable people (those with weak immune systems), so as to help minimize the exposure to our vulnerable people. — Roger Gregoire

Yes, that's the one major reason.

The other is that "healthy" people still die or experience significant complications, and we only have limited resources to deal with that as well.

Completely agree. I also completely support the premise. It would be rough for awhile, but long term effects would be less damaging than the current path. Less economic fallout, healthier general population, and another virus that no one would worry about. Totally support exposing everyone. Let the dog out and see how it runs! — Book273

I, too, totally support killing millions of people. That's definitely a normal thing to say.

Anti-natalism is a position based off these facts - it does not assign nor give instructions, impose restraints to ones biological drive to reproduce, or make "ought" arguments. — Cobra

So, you define anti-natalism as neither anti some behaviour, nor about giving birth / having children? That seems odd.

First, why would causing unnecessary harm, absolutely (and I defined that versus relative once born), not a good thing? — schopenhauer1

Assuming you are asking me under what circumstances causing absolute harm can be a good thing.

For example, if you can expect that the person will be equipped to deal with all the common harms and will themselves act morally most of the time.

This seems entirely consistent with everyone's interests, and so would be "good" in my estimation

Well, it depends on how circumscribed your definition of 'logic' is. Ramsey likens logic to aesthetics, or ethics. A mode of thinking we find to be pragmatic. So, by that measure (a mode of thinking, among others) the observation that logic is such a thing is just empirical, and the resolution of empirical data need not be subsumed within the definition of 'logic'. I think the merit of this approach is that it avoids the potential circularity of defining logic by 'whatever mode distinguishes right from wrong answers', and then that any answer delivered by flawless logic is right on that basis. — Isaac

I can see what you mean here. And that seems like a reasonable position to take with regard to specific, formalised logic systems, like predicate logic, modal logical or mathematics. But at the same time, it seems to me that there must be some basic wiring in the human brain (and, being basic, it would have to be universal to the species) which provides a basic problem-solving framework. Even if all "logic" in the strict sense is empirical, there must be some way to process empirical data in the first place.

Not as I see it, no. That there are states of affairs which are objectively the case does not necessarily imply that there are means of determining them. I infer that there are states of affairs which are objectively the case because it seems to be a good explanation for the success of scientific prediction. — Isaac

Aren't you pre-supposing a correspondence theory of truth here? You start your deliberation at states of affairs, when we could start it at mental phenomena instead. The idea that there might be something "objective" that our mental phenomena might correspond to, and that the success of prediction is a measure of "objectiveness" must be coming from somewhere. There is already some kind of method at work here.

Not being privy to the exact thought processes of those making these predictions, however, I'm less confident about assuming some homogeneous method accounts for their apparent success.

In fact, the access I do have to their thought processes through cognitive sciences seems to me to show quite the opposite. A heterogeneity of method. — Isaac

The cognitive science you refer to sounds interesting. Can you expand on it with reasonable effort?

Apart from that, isn't "success" the homogenous method we're looking for? It doesn't particularly seem to matter whether all the methods are heterogenous if we can then judge the results by a homogenous standard - their predictive success.

There's no special status given to the feeling that two propositions are contradictory above the simple feeling that one proposition is wrong. 'Wrong' and 'contradictory' are just two attitudes we might have toward propositions. — Isaac

Well it does feel to me that they're different. That saying something wrong is different from saying something incoherent. I can imagine wrong states of affairs - counterfactuals. But I cannot imagine contradictory ones. By the same token, I can organise a society according to wrong goals, and have those goals nevertheless be reached. That's not the case if the goals are contradictory.

Of course, this may just be because I have been taught to distinguish between two kinds of "wrongness".

We don't have to put a new person into this choice. We don't have to put a new person into the game. We don't have to make that decision on someone else's behalf that will affect them, and as you mentioned, cause conditions for harm and violate their dignity by putting some goal above and beyond that of simply preventing suffering. — schopenhauer1

Sure, we don't have to but that's not saying anything about whether we should. You're just short-circuiting ethics by making you preferred outcome also the basic ideal. And so you arrive at ridiculous claims like "Me having any goal apart from preventing suffering violates the dignity of future persons".

Claiming that your, and only your, moral position is the one with only positives and no drawbacks is a good sign that you're no longer actually saying anything apart from "I am right because I am".

I actually think that unless existence is an absolute paradise, it is not appropriate to bring someone into it. — schopenhauer1

But an "absolute paradise" is just a meaningless phrase. Not only can it not practically exist, it doesn't even have theoretical properties. It cannot be defined. You're comparing existence to something incoherent.

You even realize this yourself, but somehow this has no implications for your position. You just gloss over it and change the topic. That should be a further red flag to you that your position is no longer rational.

All that matters is no unnecessary harm befalls someone, when you can prevent it. Here is a chance to do that absolutely, no compromises. — schopenhauer1

Do you literally believe this? That all that matters is that no unnecessary harm befalls someone? Did you arrive at this conclusion by some process of reasoning of is that just what you personally consider to be the meaning of life?

I would say that's the case yes, I agree with Ramsey that logic is simply a mode of thought, not an objective fact about the world, and as such is prime to some subjective variation. — Isaac

Isn't that also a conclusion arrived at by using logic? I always get confused by these kinds of arguments.

But that's not what your claim is here. It's not simply that some things are right and others wrong and that we should strive to reject the wrong, leaving the viable options for what is right. I agree entirely with that claim. — Isaac

But if you agree with that claim, then you also agree that there is a way to figure out what is wrong, don't you?

I am not sure I buy the distinction you make between claims about the truth value and claims about the method. Why can I make one claim, but not the other? I can say that the flat earth theory is wrong because it's refuted by observation, but I can not say the zetetic method (something some flat earthers champion) is wrong because it arbitrarily singles out some observations as more relevant?

Both of these claims seem equally based on logic, it's just that the factual claim is mediated by the scientific method.

Does physical or mental reality precede one another, and how do we disentangle the two in a way which is meaningful to us? — Jack Cummins

Dualism is an old concept, and I would say it's "meaningful" in the sense that it does seem to capture an aspect of human existence - we do divide the world into deterministic nature and free individuals.

As I said, there seems to be a contradiction: Everything material must ultimately be mental, since we live inside our minds, and the world we interact with must therefore also be "in here" with us.
At the same time everything mental must ultimately be material, as since we experience things that are outside of us, there must be some shared reality that both our minds and whatever is not our minds are part of, which can then not itself be mental (at least not our mental).

I am pretty certain we're dealing with someone with some kind of mental illness. No amount of argument will make them reconsider.

I think that there are a lot of hidden aspects of life not being addressed under the guise of the importance of social distancing. One major aspect is that the whole notion of some people being more vulnerable to the virus is being used to make everyone feel guilty about being allowed to do absolutely anything at all. — Jack Cummins

People dying is a pretty major concern though, so it's not like people are made to feel guilty over nothing. There is certainly some discussion to be had about the proper way to communicate, and whether or not suggestions are sometimes more effective than outright regulation. But we do know severe shutdowns do work, and countries that have tried other measures have by and large failed.

There are concerns that the vaccine is not as effective as previously thought. I believe that it is highly unlikely that the pandemic will end for the next couple of years, at least. — Jack Cummins

I don't see any information suggesting that. But we will probably still be facing some kind of restrictions for several months. I find it highly doubtful that any hard lockdowns would remain in place, as they're simply too expensive.

Just imagine you are not debating me, your bitter opponent apparently- can you see ways, even if you cannot under "Echarmion" just somehow, looking beyond what you think to be the case, see how possibly "already existing" and having to compromise to survive in a community is not the same as starting a completely new person, where we indeed do not have to compromise? This is not special pleading either. That would be if the situations were truly the same. They are not. I'm not asking you to agree with me, but to at least see where I'm coming from with the difference. I'm not even asking you to reiterate your claim, as I've seen it several ways. — schopenhauer1

I will say that I do think you want the right thing, in your own way. You want to protect people from harm and protect their dignity. That I can get behind in the abstract, and you don't seem at all disagreeable in terms of what you think we should do concerning the problems of the already existing.

So I don't think of you as an enemy, but I do think of you as an evangelist. This one issue is obviously very important, and arguably too important to make for good discussion, to you.

As to your question of whether I can see it, I have to say I really struggle. Perhaps in glimpses. But it's difficult for me to wrap my head around the framing. It's not so much that I can't see that, while you're alive, you're bound up in lots of relations which of course mean you have to compromise. But I don't see not existing as an alternative to compromising. Not existing is simply absence. It's not an alternative to anything, because it is not anything. And the decision to not have children happens in the sphere of existence, so it's itself part of the compromises. How could it be any other way?

I can see how this does seem weird at first. However, if the axiom holds true to "Not cause unnecessary conditions of harm that affects other people than this isn't so weird. People don't need to exist for any X reason. But one should not start the conditions for harm on others. Doing anything outside of this would be violating the axiom.

Again, going back to compromise. Once born, survival, etc. becomes part of the game. We do have to make compromises to survive. It's not ideal. — schopenhauer1

But "not ideal" is still better than nothing, is it not? I mean at least people that exist have some choices. They get to experience sone happiness and exercise some freedom. It's not like we're yanking them out of paradise to incarnate them on earth. They get something. Maybe what they get is nasty, brutish and short, but it cannot be said that this makes it worse than nothing.

Starting a new person is something where no compromise on another's behalf has to be made. Remember, this is coming from a person-affecting view. It is absolutely unnecessary for the person this will be affecting to cause this condition for them to be harmed. If you want to take it a step further, they then in turn will not be born to violate axiom of harm in the less absolute state of affairs of someone who exists and has to live in the world. So to sum it up surely, once alive, it is best not to violate harm knowingly, but it will happen. This ideal simply will not be lived up to once alive. It is almost in conflict with how survival is carried out. Here is a case, however, where a very simply non-action leads to no harm for someone else. — schopenhauer1

But at least while alive, we can strive for the ideal. At least when alive, the ideal exists as an ideal. Without that, not only is the ideal unfulfilled, it's gone. Nothing there to have ideals in the first place. Isn't it better to strive constantly for the ideal, rather than fulfill it in some tiny way, only to destroy it utterly?

I actually don't think it's a problem to strive for unattainable ideals. I actually think it's one thing that possibly makes life worth living - to have this goal always to guide you. It's perhaps what people look for when they look for "spirituality". What I don't see is why giving the next person the chance to strive for the ideal is not worth something to you.

But physical reality, insofar as we can access it, must logically be part of mental reality. So there are two contradictory statements, both seem to be necessarily true. Historically, physical reality must precede mental reality. But epistemologically, mental reality must precede physical reality.

I think it is wrong to use individuals for some cause beyond the individual (which is my main contention). — schopenhauer1

This is just a really weird thing to say as a justification for not allowing individuals to exist.

Like your argument is that we must respect the individual, and you express that respect by making sure no individual ever gets the chance to be.

Yes, but living doesn't only entail suffering, but rather it enables it — in humans, anyhow. — Cobra

The question then is how "enabling suffering" is equivalent to causing suffering in moral terms.

When this occurs, and we introduce ethics, it is not a matter of cause/effect, but of enable/disable. — Cobra

This implies you have a moral system which is distinct from the traditional utilitarian perspective I associate with AN. Can you expand on how your system works?

But suffering is not "unique" nor dependent on the person and how one experiences or remembers it, because what causes harm and suffering is not determined by the person, nor is deciding such a thing dependent on their understanding of it. — Cobra

This seems a questionable assertion. How is suffering not dependent on the person experiencing it? Is there some empirical or otherwise objective way to measure suffering?

I think the fact that you can utilize "all other animals get diseases as well," demonstrates this point. — Cobra

When we say that animals suffer, we don't usually refer to anything objective though. We're merely projecting our own self awareness on the animal and concluding that we would experience suffering in their place. But that is a fiction.

Says the guy with "special suffering" — khaled

Quite apart from this particular discussion, I think when we say things like "clear harm", or "reasonable prediction", we're not actually using any standard. We just appeal to an (assumed) shared hierarchy of values. It's basically a reversed reductio ad absurdum.

So in a western, very individualistic society we automatically assume that things like "the honor of the household" are not examples of "clear harm" and that events that require the independent intervention of several people (as in the "your grandson is Hitler" scenario) don't count as "predictable". But that's not because we're doing something like calculating the probabilities. We just imply "clearly that result is absurd".

Consider me impressed as well. It's indeed quite rare to see someone actually be open to changing their mind. And I admit being angry and combative on my part probably only makes it harder.

This again? We already went over this. — khaled

The answer always seems to be arbitrary fiat.

I'm saying it's surely better not to do something that you know is way more likely to cause more harm than its alternatives. — khaled

That's not telling me anything useful. What kind of consequences do I need to consider? Is there some cutoff?

You likely haven't increased the number of children in the world in any way, so no. — khaled

This is an entirely unfounded assumption.

Point is, you're being ridiculous by taking a single possibility and based on that concluding that the thing is wrong. At the level you're talking at, with things that have incredibly low chances of happening, no amount of processing the possibilities will yield a very clear answer. — khaled

Yes, that's the point.

Which is why I don't think having the party is wrong. It doesn't do any clear damage. You can think of a million ways it can harm and I can think of a million ways NOT having it can harm. So don't be outlandish and try to only highlight the bad. — khaled

Oh, now a new standard: "clear" damage. That's helpful.

With birth, there is no way not doing it can harm. That's the point. — khaled

That's patently ridiculous. Your child could be the one to cure cancer. Or invent mind uploading. Or just be someone's happy spouse. Obviously them not existing can do harm.

It isn't. Because in the once case (preventing an instance of suffering) that's usually seen as a good thing. You helped someone. But not having kids is not a good thing. Not a bad thing. The point is "Not a good thing, not a bad thing" is better than "A bad thing" which is the alternative. — khaled

Hmm, fair enough. So there is, good, bad and neutral.

I don't get what you mean here. — khaled

If it's enough to say "well it's possible locking them up is necessary to prevent harm", why is it not enough to say "it's possible my child will do something very important that alleviates lots of harm"?

I said "not really risk harming others". You know what I mean. — khaled

No, not really. As I have pointed out, I don't know what your standard for "really" or "clear" or "predictable" is.

It's more like, I find the point at which it becomes acceptable around the point of the status quo. — khaled

But what are you actually doing? What principles inform your decision? Are is there some hierarchy of harms? Some pages earlier you said it essentially depends on the strength of the emotions involved, but everytime I bring up the question of how much the emotions count, you simply ignore it.

Because it's a foregone conclusion you are always going to unintentionally cause some harm once born. Try your best, but the outcomes simply won't pan out. Once born into existence, compromises are necessary, and those compromises do indeed lead to harm. — schopenhauer1

This is true of everything you do, not just of having children. At the very least, you're probably a cause for a lot of children to be born, even if you don't have any yourself. Did a couple meet at one of your parties? You have created the conditions for harm.

There is no evading causing the conditions for harm, whether or not you personally have children. So you are forced to draw arbitrary lines somewhere in order to be allowed to do anything at all.

The point was that your idea seems cynical as well, "No pain, no gain".. which is essentially what it amounts to when you put anything other than consideration of someone else's harm/suffering/negative outcomes in a decision that affects them. — schopenhauer1

I reject this. The opposite is true. If I make my decisions solely based on "negative outcomes", then all my decisions are dictated by other people. And this, if applied universally, turns everyone into a zombie only ever reacting to other people's emotions.

Ironically, since procreation is something that is subjected from an outside force, your maxim might be used against yourself. The only move you can make here is to do the usual, "But no one exists prior", — schopenhauer1

It's true. You don't get to dismiss true statements merely because you do not like them.

yet this doesn't negate that an outside force will affect someone. — schopenhauer1

I didn't say "affect", I said "subjugate". Different words.

It's like saying if someone decided to immediately punch the new person in the face once born, that this is okay, as it was pre-planned (before there was a person with a "will") :roll:. — schopenhauer1

Not only is this sentence self-contradictory, it doesn't follow from anything I said, nor is it in any way related to the kind of moral philosophy I outlined. You don't get to punch people in the face for no reason. Nor did I ever claim that future people can't be part of consideration. You're just making stuff up.

If you knew the person whose life you save will end up a serial killer, then yes it's absolutely your responsibility. I already told you how I deal with this: By taking into consideration what you can predict. You could not have predicted that the person whose life you save will end up a serial killer. If you could have then you shouldn't have saved them. — khaled

How do you judge what someone "can predict"? I came up with the example, so clearly it is predictable, since we can think of the possibility. What else is required?

But better not to do so knowingly, surely? — khaled

But it is knowingly if you understand the logic. It's a certainty that the actions you take cause indefinite causal chains and therefore also cause harm.

Or the caveat that it depends on what you know. In other words: Try your best to not cause harm. Doesn't sound crazy does it? — khaled

How is it possible to "do my best" if I know I'll inadvertently cause harm by seekingly innocuous acts? Like if I celebrate my birthday, there is a significant possibility that by having a party, I cause not just one, but possibly several children to be born. I know this to be the case, it's not some outlandish scenario. So no parties?

What does this have to do with anything. You were the one that just said "I prefer not to have been born" makes no sense. Neither does "I prefer to exist and suffer". Because at no point were they in a position to choose. — khaled

I am asking how you arrive at the conclusion that preventing people from existing is morally equivalent to preventing some particular instance of suffering, since you agree they're not one and the same.

You don't know it's one time. And that we do punish them by law doesn't necessarily make it right (I agree it's right in this case though) — khaled

But if just potential avoidance of future harm is sufficient, how does this not apply to children?

If you don't want to be in a relationship and you are obligated to be in one that would fall under "Having things done to you that you wouldn't want done to you" I think, no? So it is prevention of harm. From yourself. — khaled

Does it matter here how strong the feelings are? Maybe you don't don't find the other person objectionable, you just don't think you'll be as happy as with someone else. But of course you don't know that. So why cause the immediate, certain harm?

Depends on how good they are at them. If they're good enough that they will not really risk harming others then it's fine. — khaled

Noone is good enough not to risk harming others. And even if only the driver is hurt, that still causes suffering to a bunch of other people (their family, the other driver, medical personnel, people stuck in traffic etc.). You seem to ignore these obvious consequences.

Point is, there is a breaking point at which you cannot seriously say that they are causing harm by riding. A point at which frustrating their desire to ride a motorcycle arbitrarily can be predicted to cause as much harm as actually riding the motorcycle. Until that point, yes it is wrong to ride the motorcycle. That point is around where they get a license — khaled

And we determine this breaking point how? What's the mental operation here? Because from the outside, it looks like you're just taking the status quo and then saying "this is what causes the least harm". Wouldn't it at least depend on the driver? Like if someone really wanted to, we'd have to allow it, but is someone was only lukewarm about it, it'd be immoral?

So why did you call doing harm without justification "evil"? — khaled

Given all the qualifications, it's just a "gotcha" question. If you pile on enough modifiers, you can make it say anything.

Science tells us healthy immune systems destroy infected cells (via white blood cells; leukocytes) and prevent virus replications (via interferon proteins). — Roger Gregoire

It also tells us this takes time. More time than the virus needs to replicate. Interferons are not 100% effective, and leukocytes only work after the fact.

To defeat a serious virus infection, the body needs to build up a sufficient amount of antibodies, during which time the virus keeps reproducing.

Viruses which are unable to reproduce in the face of a healthy immune system will die out. It's the successful viruses we need to worry about.

2. If you want to stop the covid virus, then use healthy immune people. — Roger Gregoire

How do you suppose we get immune people? That's the whole point of the vaccination drive.

Absolutely False. — Roger Gregoire

I think I am going to trust actual scientists over your opinion on this.

Lol. Yeah right, a culture warrior. You don't even notice how funny you sound. — ssu

If you want an example of what I mean, watch his interview with Steven Pinker. I'd guess you probably agree with Pinker's positive outlook on the achievements of capitalism, enlightenment philosophy and liberalism. So it should be very apparent how Peterson tries to shoe-horn cultural marxism into the discussion constantly to turn the Pinkers's generally more positive and optimistic outlook into some kind of attack on the "post-modern cultural marxists".

Where exactly do you have a problem? — khaled

This part:

And based on that fact some justification should be required to do the thing that could lead to this negative subjective evaluation in the future. — khaled

It strikes me as completely absurd. There is a risk some action might cause a negative subjective evaluation in someone, and so it needs justification? Why on earth would that be the case? A little thought experiment: let's say we have a population of 10.000 people who keep 100 sex slaves around. The 10.000 people really like their sex slaves. So much so that they're extremely upset if we take them away. Do we tally up the negative subjective evaluations of the 100 sex slaves Vs the 10.000 people? Or can we just say prima facie that the 10.000 slave owners can go fuck themselves regardless of how intensely they want to own sex slaves?

And does this not entail some responsibility? It's not like you couldn't have predicted your child would be harmed, no you knew it would happen. And continued with the course of action that would lead to it anyways. Why? Normally we'd need some justification when doing something harmful to others. — khaled

"Doing something harmful" isn't the same as creating the conditions for harm. In the same way that stealing something isn't the same as creating the conditions for stealing. This weird kind of logic would mean you're responsible if the person whose life you save ends up a serial killer. Clearly that's a possibility. Not to mention that causal chains are indefinite, so whatever you do, you're basically guaranteed to cause something horrible eventually.

So you necessarily need to add caveats like there needs to be a certain probability, which are ultimately arbitrary.

What? If "Not having B does not cause harm" is false then "Not having B causes harm" is necessarily true. Who, exactly, is harmed due to someone not having a child? — khaled

I have no idea what logical operation you're performing here. I clearly didn't say "not having B causes harm" and given your other replies you do realize I am not saying the statement is false, but rather that the statement is meaningless.

I'm saying precisely that "Not having children" is "Not going against anyone's will". Do you agree? — khaled

I do, but this is only a necessary prerequisite for your argument, it's not sufficient to reach your conclusion.

But whatever is happening here, it is certainly preferable to causing harm knowingly. — khaled

But if you agree that not existing isn't the same as not suffering, how can you then be certain that it's nevertheless preferable to suffering?

Certainly most people wouldn't say that they'd rather not exist than exist and suffer. So where do you take this idea from?

Ok, assuming this is valid..... Who cares? You have not by saying this removed the need for justification when considering doing something that will result in harm. This is such a pointless critique, because whether or not it is valid doesn't even matter. Even if it is valid, it is not enough for having children to come out right. Because you haven't dealt with the main issue. Having children causes harm. We need some sort of justification to do this. The claim is that that justification is not present. Saying "But not having children is not alleviating harm from anyone" is not justification, and I agree with it. So what's the point of saying that at all? — khaled

This entire paragraph reads like gibberish if I try to plug in the definition you have earlier supplied for "harm", so I can't really see how this is anything other than you again repeating the claim "you need justification".

Because you cannot predict what behaviors cause harm, it is a fact, once born you will cause unintentional harm. — schopenhauer1

Which would seem a further argument against your position, since it makes it even harder to justify ever taking any action. Why single out childbirth?

However, would you willingly try to cause unnecessary harm (assuming you knew what you were doing was indeed harmful rather than something else like "just punishment" or corrective action)? — schopenhauer1

This is essentially asking "are you evil"?

However, procreation is a situation where it is absolutely 100% known you can prevent future conditions for all other harm. This indeed is a case where it is perfectly known that all suffering can be prevented. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, at the price of total destruction of everything else that has any value whatsoever. A weird trade to make.

Why would some abstract cause like carrying out freedom be more important than affecting someone negatively? — schopenhauer1

Because freedom is the thing that makes us human. It is the thing that gives our lives meaning as individual subjects. That we experience ourselves as actors is the basis for our self-awareness, from which everything else follows. Insofar as we give it up, we turn into just a part of nature, a thing.

Nazis had a slogan of "Work sets you free" for example. The notion that some positive duty abstract thing is more important than the negative duty for not creating someone else's conditions for negative experience/outcomes seems wrong.. — schopenhauer1

The Nazis did not posit duty to an abstract thing though. Their duty was to the "Volk" and the "race", which in their view were not at all abstractions, but real objective entities fighting for survival with other such entities.

And of course the slogan was cynical. It was nothing but a cruel joke.

I can say because it uses people or that it violates their dignity once born because it puts some reason above the person's pain affects them.. but you will just keep asking for why that is wrong.. so I will just leave it at that. — schopenhauer1

Out dignity is our dignity as subjects, as ends in and of themselves, not subject to nature of outside forces. So it's subjecting ourselves to some seemingly objective measure of suffering that is against our dignity.

You see, the parent would be preventing these conditions of freedom and thus it is justified, as freedom (of choice?) needs to exist for some reason in the first place and is more important than the negative duty to not cause unnecessary harm somehow. — schopenhauer1

There is no "justification", as there is no need to "justify" an action that is according to a maxim can be universalised. So long as people remain ends in themselves, rather than being subjugated to an outside force or another will, there is nothing that needs justifying.

This. He has yet to give an example where “maximizing freedom” trumps not causing harm either. Which makes me doubt if he actually believes this or is just using it as an exception in this one case arbitrarily. — khaled

I gave you a bunch of examples. But you simply always redefined harm to cover all kinds of abstract concepts which have nothing at all to do with the supposed prevention of negative emotions.

If someone kills their partner in a one-time emotional meltdown, do we still punish them? We do, but this cannot be justified by the prevention of harm, so you'd somehow have to class "justice" as the prevention of harm.

Are we allowed to cause people emotional pain by rejecting their love, regardless of our reasoning? We are, but this also cannot be justified as prevention of harm, so now we need to class "freedom of choice" as the prevention of harm.

Do we allow people to ride motorcycles for fun? We do. But clearly this creates the conditions for harm. How do we justify it? Freedom? The economy? Motorcycles are cool?

The list goes on.

You literally have no idea why there were no crowds at the inauguration, do you?

Yes, healthy immune people "clean up" (kill the virus; stop the spread of) covid-19 contamination. If this were not true, then herd immunity would be impossible. — Roger Gregoire

Immune people will "kill" whatever virus enters their system, but obviously this doesn't mean that they don't infect vulnerable people before they are immune. And the reason herd immunity works is not that immune people actively remove the contagion, they just don't actively spread it. Only a small fraction of virus cells ever enters a new host, so it needs to reproduce constantly and in large numbers to survive.

Where the healthy immune human may be more efficient at decontaminating, is through breathing in air borne viruses. Basically the healthy immune human is an air filtration system, breathing in virus contaminated air, and expelling less virus than they take in. Continual breathing one breath after another will slowly filter (remove) virus from the air. — Roger Gregoire

It's extremely implausible that humans breathe in all the virus in a given volume of air, unless it's in a small, airtight container. Human lungs also don't "filter" all the air that enters them.

Healthy immune systems allow less total virus replication, which thereby means LESS to spread. — Roger Gregoire

This is again simply false. A healthy immune system will not stop the virus from reproducing and spreading. It'll only prevent it from killing it's host.

Firstly, vulnerable people catch the virus by exposing themselves to contaminated environments and surfaces (and not necessarily 'directly' from other people). — Roger Gregoire

How do you know this? What research has been done on direct Vs indirect exposure?

For the most part, people with healthy immune systems don't replicate and shed the virus, ...they attack and kill it! — Roger Gregoire

I don't know where you picked this notion up, but it's false. CoViD 19 is extraordinarily contagious and is being "shed" very quickly - much more quickly than an immune system that hasn't already produced antibodies can react.

1. The healthier the immune system, the more it kills the virus, and the less it spreads it (as there is naturally less (or none) to spread). Healthy people are the 'Removers' of virus contamination. — Roger Gregoire

This just logically doesn't work. Not spreading isn't the same as removing.

2. The weaker the immune system, the less it kills the virus, and the more it spreads (as the virus replicates itself it becomes easier and more of it to spread). Vulnerable people are the 'Contributors' of virus contamination. — Roger Gregoire

Plausible, but not necessary. It's just as plausible vulnerable people spread the virus less, because they show symptoms earlier and this are isolated more quickly.

It is the healthy people that we "expose" to the virus, NOT the vulnerable. This is commonly referred to as "strategic herd immunity". And from an overly simplistic view, the logic goes like this: — Roger Gregoire

Exposing healthy people automatically also exposes vulnerable people. That's the problem. There is no way to neatly separate society into those that will suffer serious harm from an infection and those who don't, not least because we don't yet know all the reasons why CoViD 19 kills or disables people.

I'm just still confused how you think exposing more people to the virus somehow leads to less deaths overall.

You are falsely confusing the "threshold value" as the starting point of protection. Herd immunity is not like a light switch that starts protecting when we reach this value. The 'threshold value' is just the theoretical point where the virus stops spreading altogether. We don't have to wait til we get 60% to get protection. One healthy person by himself provides some level of protection. And the more, the merrier. — Roger Gregoire

Yes, the R-rate goes down as more and more people get immune. Because infections aren't instantly over though, there is a significant time lag, so the curve is logarithmic. You'll only really start seeing effects close to the threshold unless you reduce R in other ways as well - like by social distancing.

And by "healthy" I assume you mean "immune".

For example, imagine a very deep swimming pool that can hold up to 100 people. If 60 healthy good swimmers were equally scattered in the pool, then it is guaranteed that if a vulnerable non-swimmer fell in, that there would always be a healthy swimmer close enough to prevent the vulnerable non-swimmer from drowning. — Roger Gregoire

That's not at all how this works. Immune people don't magically protect vulnerable people. They just make it harder for the virus to spread, which incidentally also means it's less likely to spread to vulnerable people.

Now imagine that authorities tell everyone (both healthy and vulnerable) to get out of the pool for fear that a non-swimmer might drown if he falls in. So now when a non-swimmer accidentally falls in, there is no one there to save him; he has 0% chance of survival. And if there were 1 healthy swimmer in the pool when this poor non-swimmer fell in then there would be a chance that this non-swimmer could have been saved. And if there were 2 healthy swimmers in this pool, then this doubles the chance the non-swimmer could be saved, and the more healthy swimmers in the pool the more likely the non-swimmer could be saved, until we reach 60 healthy swimmers, then we have 100% (theoretical) certainty that no non-swimmer could ever drown. — Roger Gregoire

Again, that's not how any of this works. The virus remains just as deadly even if herd Immunity is reached. "Herd immunity" is just a name. It doesn't actually mean everyone is immune. In fact, people still contract and die from diseases for which we have statistical herd immunity, because you can still contract them if you're not yourself immune and are unlucky.

Depends on the definition of a country, of course. The EU is usually considered a federation of states, but not a federal state. It's also pretty much a statelike entity sui generis. With the introduction of a EU citizenship, the EU technically meets all the classical requirements of a state (territory, sovereignty, citizens). The sticking point is, however, whether the EU has genuine sovereignty or merely acts on behalf of the individual member states. This is especially visible in terms of external sovereignty, because the EU has almost complete control over the toll and trade regimes, but almost no authority in foreign policy apart from that.

All in all, treating the EU as if it was a state seems the most sensible approach. It's certainly weird to object to the application of the Vienna convention to EU diplomats.

I think the relation with incel culture comes from an interview with JP where he showed sympathy with the demand (voiced by some incels) to be assigned a sexual partner by the government. As usual with JP, it's hard to say whether he was just doing some psychological analysis of the demand or expressing some kind of endorsement.

Besides being openly ridiculed by him on a regular basis, he attacks intersectional feminism, communism and Marx, the gender pay gap, the laws on transgender language, activism culture, the degree to which the left is nurture orientated and so on. This forum is exceedingly leftwing and actually quite radically leftwing, JP is not going to be viewed favourably here. — Judaka

It's odd that I very rarely see someone defending JPs philosophy in it's substance, I only ever see people claiming that he is viewed unfavourably because of his politics. As a result, I have no idea what people who consider JP an important or convincing philosopher actually believe.

c) Thirdly of course his actual work got interest and his books on self-help (like 12 Rules for Life) became best sellers and created a following, which curiously was portrayed to be "right-wing", which is a rather dubious portrayal. — ssu

What's dubious about the portrayal? Peterson styles himself as a culture warrior against the left.

It is simply about not creating conditions of harm and impositions for someone else. Period. — schopenhauer1

Why though? I mean what's the point? Why would I conceive my relationship towards other people as primarily negative, in the sense that any interaction basically requires justification because of the potential of some future condition of harm? Who benefits?

But then, procreating someone will lead to this scenario, even as you have defined it thus: "Affects people's ability to practice their freedom".. — schopenhauer1

The solution you're suggesting amounts to protecting freedom by preventing any freedom, which is obviously self-defeating.

You weren’t using this highly limiting definition for the word “harm”. — khaled

I was using my own definition of harm, but the problem doesn't even come up because I constructed the entire argument by reference to people other than the one potentially being created.

Do you want to argue that having B does not cause harm? Because I think we agree that it does. — khaled

Sure, it's part of a causal chain that includes harm at some point.

What about that not having B does not cause harm? I think we agree there as well. — khaled

No, I don't agree, as I have explained. If harm is "doing something to someone they do not want to do", then the absence of harm is "doing something that is not going against anyone's will". The amount of people doesn't seem to matter here.

And concerning suffering, which you seem to use interchangeably with harm: if suffering is "something you don't want is done to you", then not suffering is "nothing you don't want is done to you", which is the same as "you want the things that are done to you". If you don't exist, none of these sentences makes any sense, so not existing isn't the absence of suffering, it's the absence of existing. Given you definitions, the two aren't interchangeable.

The argument that nonexistence is equivalent to the absence of suffering would require treating suffering as something that can be assessed irrespective of any human perspective. In other words suffering would have to be an objective property of the universe, like mass or electric charge.

And when you write the following:

It is simply the recognition that a state of affairs includes harm. So don’t bring it about. — khaled

you do really seem to treat harm as an objective fact as opposed to a human judgement.

Not quite.
1. Vulnerable people die from covid
2. Healthy people gain immunity from covid.
3. Herd immunity: the more healthy immune people out in society creates a greater protective effect to the vulnerable (i.e. the less deaths of vulnerable people). — Roger Gregoire

Significant herd protection requires probably at least 60% of the population to be immune. I trust you can make your own calculation, based on current death rates, as to what it would mean to get there.

A lot of "natural" human behaviours are bad, we could just add the tendency towards authoritarianism on the list. But calling it a tendency towards authoritarianism or despotism is perhaps stretching it. From what I know, "natural" band-level hunter-gatherer societies have very flat hierarchies and the leaders of these bands have very little coercive power. So the authority that would "naturally" be gained is very small.

For this tendency to lead to despotism requires the additional "unnatural" imposition of higher organisation.

But I don't think it's much in dispute that we associate confidence with competence as well as status with competence. Perhaps I remember this wrongly though.

And contrary to the fear mongering news, healthy people in general don't die of covid, but yet we are preventing these healthy people from acquiring herd immunity that could ultimately save many millions more from dying. Go figure. — Roger Gregoire

Acquiring herd immunity by being infected by the actual virus (as opposed to a vaccine) does not save people from dying. I have no idea how you think this works, but the general rule is that the more people that are infected, the more will die. That herd immunity may ultimately result doesn't mean less people died.

What I really mean is that ideally people would engage in discourse not as a contest of wills, but to come to a better understanding of the world, as in Philosophy, or decide upon the best course of action when situations have been produced that require some form of mediation, as in Politics. — thewonder

One problem open political discourse might face is that there is some evidence that humans have some kind of "political bias", which is to say that as social animals we have very deeply embedded reactions in social interactions. And politics is essentially the most important social interaction, since it mediates power, and therefore survival.

Humans have a tendency to either follow power (smart, if you want to survive) or rise in opposition to it (also smart, if you can win), but not to engage in rational discourse about power. There is, I believe, also some research that shows that people react negatively to politicians admitting mistakes, which seems to imply that people have a bias towards "strongmen". This predictably leads to politicians and movements to try to demonstrate their infallibility, with all the consequences this has.

Who are these "few million people"? Healthy people (those with strong immune systems with no underlying conditions that are susceptible to the ill effects of covid) in virtually all cases don't die from covid.- Look at the scientific empirical evidence/data. And stop listening the the "fear mongering" media. — Roger Gregoire

People without strong immune systems are still people, are they not?

Herd immunity, and specifically "strategic herd immunity" is the ONLY solution we have. — Roger Gregoire

Everyone is aiming for eventual herd immunity. You just somehow seem to be of the opinion that it is better to have a few million people die to the virus quickly then much fewer people over a longer period of time.

A virus is barely a living thing. Without new hosts, it'd die out. But as I said, it's basically impossible to do because someone needs to keep the lights on (literally as well as figuratively).

Remember, all this started with one person on this planet; with just singular infection (in Wuhan China). — Roger Gregoire

And yet it appears that China, along with some other countries, does have the virus under control, so apparently it is possible.

Just a piece of friendly advice here (if you wish to accept it)... be careful with the ad hominen attacks (the casting of insults). To many of us that value debate and discussion, when someone resorts to insults, it is an indicator of defeat; it is a big white flag; it means that they've lost the argument and they have nothing more rational to argue with. — Roger Gregoire

I think you'll find most people here are perfectly capable to recognise who has the better argument regardless of the tone.

For example, you conspicuously ignored all the objective points raised.

False. We are finding that in one option B will have negative feelings. In the other he won’t. So we pick the one where he won’t. We are not saying that “if B is not born B will feel neutral”. Or anything to that effect. — khaled

I literally just explained to you, and you agreed. So I am confused why you're now turning around and telling me that, no, we don't need a comparison of different states of affairs that B experiences.

“Rather never have existed” makes no sense. B was never in a position to choose. He couldn’t have rathered never existed, or rathered existed at that. — khaled

My point exactly.

That is not what is being used as justification for not having B. What is being used is that having B caused unjustified harm, whereas not having B doesn’t. It is irrelevant HOW it doesn’t cause unjustified harm, only that it doesn’t whereas the alternative does. — khaled

And we're back to repeating the same sentences over and over again. Maybe if you say it another 100 times, it'll suddenly be convincing.

If you only care about suffering that requires: A- a specific person who exists now and B- a specific harm then you will run into a lot of trouble.

This has malicious genetic engineering come out as fine. Since there is no person who exists now that you could harm. Nor is there a specific harm. Blindness in itself isn’t harmful, it just makes it more likely you’ll run into harm.

So how do you have MGE come out to be wrong in light of these requirements? — khaled

We've been over this, and I already gave you my arguments for how it can nevertheless be wrong. Shall I look them up and re-quote them for you?

One matter which I think has not been addressed by policy makers is whether social distancing is really stopping the virus? — Jack Cummins

If literally everyone stayed in their house for two weeks, the virus would die out. Obviously, this isn't very practical. So we're left with less effective measures.

She thinks that she must have contracted it through food delivered outside the door. — Jack Cummins

It has been known since early last year that this could happen, but compared to direct human to human transmission it's a lot less likely.

I plan to get the vaccine whenever I am able but felt so miserable reading in the news yesterday that the vaccine will not bring any end to social distancing. — Jack Cummins

Not by itself, but it'll massively reduce the likelihood of infection and so make it much easier to weed out the virus.

I already acknowledged this and gave you an answer for the difference. — schopenhauer1

I don't know what you're referring to here, can you quote it?

Why? Your answer will be truly telling if you understand the difference I explained. — schopenhauer1

I have already explained that I think suffering is only relevant insofar as it affects people's ability to practice their freedom. It follows naturally from this that there wouldn't be a general responsibility to prevent all suffering altogether.

What point do you want me to expand on?

It is both. Still, better to prevent harm than not to. In absence of a justification to do otherwise. What’s difficult about this.

The "conditions that allow harm to be assessed" are precisely that someone is harmed for you. Which I find so weird. This quote amounts to "But then doesn't preventing harm here turn into preventing harm here?"

"Harm assessment" happens when you wish for a different state of affairs because of what just happened to you. In other words, ANY prevention of harm would amount to "preventing the conditions that allow for harm to be assessed" by this definition. Let me give an example: — khaled

I see your point. And I agree that in order to make assessments before the fact, we necessarily need to compare hypothetical examples.

That said, there is a difference between imagining a scenario where B is punched and compare it to one where the punch doesn't not happen, and comparing it to a scenario where B doesn't happen.

In the first case, we're comparing two instances of the same thing - Bs feelings about the state of affairs. In the second, we're comparing Bs feeling to nothingness. You can't very well arrive at the conclusion that B would rather never have existed, because that's inherently contradictory.

Where is the hard line between "general" and "specific" responsibilities? Also what happened to "special suffering" whatever that was? — khaled

The two discussions we're having assume different premises. So if I talk about suffering here and responsibility there that's the reason.

As to the "hard line", it's between saying something like "one has to always minimize suffering" and saying something like "you're responsible for protection this person from suffering caused by getting lost because you're their tour guide".

This is not about law, so not sure why we need to make those comparisons. — schopenhauer1

It was an analogy, to explain the principle.

It's not the universe handing down what is right. — schopenhauer1

Does the universe do that, in your opinion?

Do not create unnecessary harm for another without cause (ameliorating a worse situation). Same for the axiom of unnecessary impositions and violations of consent. — schopenhauer1

What's so hard to understand about the fact that I just don't agree with this principle? You keep repeating it like some sort of magic incantation, but I already stated outright that I disagree.

The responsibility to have prevented this unnecessary harm, in this case lies with the person who creates the conditions for all other harms (and impositions) to occur for the future person who will be born from the decision. — schopenhauer1

That's the disagreement again. I don't think it does. There is no general responsibility for all possible harm. Rather, there are specific responsibilities towards the people you interact with.

Note, this doesn't mean that the parent is the cause of all specific harms, simply that the parent is the cause of not preventing (and more accurately, enabling) the conditions for these unnecessary harms. There is a difference you are conflating. — schopenhauer1

I'm not. I just disagree that the parent has that responsibility.

And when I say "My child will suffer" I am saying "My child will do this comparison you are speaking of and wish for a different state of affairs". That's it. No metaphysical mumbo jumbo. — khaled

But then doesn't preventing harm here turn into preventing the conditions that allow harm to be assessed?