Haha, you may be right. But I still think I can't fully commit for the reasons given. I never intended to beat this horse quite so much.

I'm not sure why certain people are still so obstinately confused. I'm also puzzled by how people can pontificate on all the permutations of meaning concerning the word anatalism, when in fact I coined it myself in the original post. Do a Google search for it and you will not find anything. Anyway, let me now try to recapitulate my position yet again. Though I suppose I ought to be glad that people are interested in what I label myself. In the grand scheme of things, it matters very little to me, but as long as labels are necessary to use, I will use them and try to do so as accurately as possible.

Alright, forget about celibacy for the moment. That is clearly a bugbear for many of you and is only of secondary importance to how I define anatalism. First, I stipulate that an action is wrong if it knowingly frustrates the will of another being. Second, I take anti-natalism to be the position that regards having children as morally wrong. So is having children (procreation) wrong? My answer is no, because the mere act of procreation (consensual, unprotected sex with a fertile female) doesn't frustrate the will of another being; one can't harm that which doesn't exist. However, does the fact that procreation is not wrong thereby make it right? Of course not, for one must provide reasons to have children, which is in effect to argue for natalism. In my case, I find none of the reasons for having children compelling.

Now, at this point, things can begin to get murky, but suffice it to say that I think we can establish that I am neither an anti-natalist nor a natalist. So what am I? Well, as I have said, I think the term "anatalist" fits best. Think of it as functioning like the word "amoral" which is between "immoral" and "moral." Notice, however, that it still occupies a negative position (though a different kind of negativity from anti-natalism): one does not commit to the natalist position. Could one still have children despite not finding any reason to? Sure, but this would be to act irrationally. Hence, because I do not wish to act irrationally, I do not have children. Again, it's not because I think it would be immoral to do so, but because it would be irrational to do so. I would also claim that it's irrational for everyone to have children, in addition to myself, but that depends on an argument I have not raised in this thread. For the purposes of this thread, I'm only speaking about myself.

By Zeus I hope this helps.

In your opening post you said "It could also be someone whose lifestyle negates the possibility of having children, e.g. if one is celibate, meaning that they practically assent to anti-natalism, if not theoretically." — Michael

Yes, the weak form, which I then re-termed anatalism. What's your point?

No, not quite. See my latest post. My conversation with you had to do with celibacy and its relation to what one assents to in terms of anti/anatalism. But that wasn't the primary way I defined an anatalist specifically.

In my OP, I said it refers to "someone who claims that having children may not be wrong but is not right/justified either." It's a position of skepticism, in other words, which, like all positions of skepticism, does not give positive assent. I doubt the claim that procreation is immoral but also all claims that it is justified. I suppose it's a sort of liminal space, but this is my position nonetheless.

You're defining it as someone who practically assents to anti-natalism. — Michael

Did I? I thought I suggested divorcing strong and weak versions of anti-natalism, seeing as the latter does not live up to the implication of the prefix. Ergo, the new term "anatalist" for it.

But not having children is not a practical assent to assigning a negative value to giving birth. — Michael

Yes, indeed, that's why I've always argued, or tried to argue (forgive me if I didn't or wasn't clear) that it is practical assent to anatalism, not anti-natalism.

Yes, but Michael, that's basically my point. Did you read my original post? I said I didn't feel comfortable labeling myself an anti-natalist for precisely the reason you've just given me. That's why I introduced the term, "anatalist."

As I said in another post, I regard procreation as rather more foolish than immoral. So I suppose this might be construed as a "negative value" judgment in the broadest sense of normativity, but it's not strictly a moral judgment and nor do I mean for it to be.

And why not?

All definitions are stipulative and based on historical usage.

Me not having sex with men is not a practical assent of homophobia. So me not having children is not a practical assent of anti-natalism. — Michael

Alright, but does this mean you deny any validity between the distinction in question? I don't see how you could.

You wish to redefine "assent" to mean "acts in a way that requires a specific result." — Hanover

No, I only wish to include this as one form of assent.

Obviously #1 and #2 are contradictory. — Hanover

Nope. You still apparently don't get that I am saying that there are two kinds of assent.

A person who engages in wild promiscuous sex can be an anatalist as long as that person uses birth control. — Hanover

Sure, but the anatalism is notional in this case.

1. Behavior that requires a certain result.
2. Belief or agreement. — Hanover

Yes, congratulations.

my thought is that your attempt to redefine the terms was an attempt to save your theory that somehow anatalism and celibacy were related. — Hanover

Well, they are related, as you point out in formulations 1A and 1B. So wherefore art the alleged "nonsense," Hanover? I see nothing of the kind proven in your post.

Yes, I'm aware of the Google definition, but throughout history, to be celibate has usually meant or entailed abstaining from all sexual activity. I'd say this still holds true today as well. If a Catholic priest tells you he's celibate, that doesn't mean he or his church thinks that entails masturbation, oral sex, etc. As I suggested with my nun example, I really don't believe you're that naive.

I took it to mean primarily the abstention from sexual intercourse, as well as other sex acts which require more than one person, but not necessarily all sexual activity - including those typically done alone, such as masturbation. — Sapientia

Odd. I've never heard this.

You might view it as an appeal to the extreme, but it is nonetheless an exception which corrects the error implicit within your association of the two positions. — Sapientia

And one which I have granted, though your victory is only proportional to the size of your objection, which as you note, is quite small.

I have since realised that I don't personally fit the definition of a celibate if the definition contains the exclusion of all sexual activity — Sapientia

Sometimes, to be celibate can refer to someone who abstains from marriage, but it can also refer to someone who abstains both from it and from sexual activity, which is how I've been using it. Chastity is another word that has two slightly different connotations. Sometimes it refers to someone who abstains from sexual activity until marriage and sometimes to someone who abstains from sexual activity completely. You may have been thinking of one or another of these different meanings of said words.

It is not necessarily the case that the engagement of sexual activity is required in order to have a child. — Sapientia

Is this honestly the content of your objection? Female insemination? Sure, okay, I grant this very technical exception. On the other hand, how is this not simply an appeal to the extreme?

To label oneself celibate has for millennia entailed that one neither has, nor plans to have, children. Period. If you went up to a nun anywhere in the world and said, "ah, but you see my dear, I've discovered a looophole; you could still have children by artificial insemination and remain celibate!" - you would be met with a rather quizzical look and a reply in the form of, "do you know nothing of my vocation, dear sir?"

Someone whose lifestyle negates the possibility of having children would just be someone who happens to inadvertently conform with the life choice of a weak anti-natalist. — Sapientia

This is actually very close to what I am saying, if not exactly what I am saying.

It has nothing to do with assent, which is a wilful acceptance, and without such explicit assent, it'd be a mistake to judge that they "practically assent" based solely upon said-lifestyle, unless it was clear that they held weak anti-natalist views without realising it. There are other, more likely, explanations. — Sapientia

Aha, so you don't think there is any such thing as "practical assent." I believe I've now pinpointed the issue you have. I can only ask why you think this, for I regard it as absolutely undeniable that one can assent in two different ways, one in a physical and active sense and the other in a mental and psychological sense. You can murder someone and yet agree that murder is wrong. You can be an alcoholic and yet also wish to be a teetotaler. You can not eat meat and yet not agree with veganism/vegetarianism. Each of these relies on the distinction in question, and I could proffer a million more examples, but you ought to get it by now.

do you or do you not stand by the following statement that you made in your opening post? — Sapientia

I do.

there was another part about celibates "practically assenting" to weak anti-natalism which I reject. — Sapientia

Well, why do you reject it? Because that is indeed the reason for its inclusion and relevance in my labeling myself an anatalist.

A celibate person is someone who is not married and who does not engage in any kind of sexual activity. They are, practically speaking, anatalist, since they repudiate natalism by their actions, which don't include, by definition, having children. Now, they may still theoretically assent to natalism, or they may not, but this is a different kind of assent.

To flip it around just to show you what I mean, imagine an anti-natalist who has children. Is this manifestly self-contradictory? No, for it could mean that the person theoretically assents to the proposition "having children is immoral," but for whatever reason still had a child. Perhaps he was caught in a moment of personal weakness or perhaps his condom didn't function properly. At any rate, such a person would be a practical natalist, in that he had a child, but also a theoretical anti-natalist, in that he still agrees that having children is immoral.

At any rate, my point was simply that there is nothing illogical about wanting there to be more children in the world and also wanting to be celibate. — Hanover

Nor would I, and nor did I, deny such a thing. So here we agree.

And that too is an ad hom — Hanover

Perhaps, but what is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

considering I was in fact in a fraternity (shocker I know). — Hanover

No, it's merely ironic.

There is no relationship to celibacy and natalism. — Hanover

I don't see that you've shown this. To be celibate is to be practically anatalist, though not necessarily theoretically. What is unclear about this?

I read them, and I thought they were adequately, nay, perfectly addressed by Soylent, so as it happens I too don't feel the need to go back. Nor do I feel I was unclear in my original post.

a failure of the poster to express him or her self with sufficient clarity, as seems to be the case here. — Sapientia

Only according to you. Most everyone else who has commented seems to have understood what I meant. Of course, this still doesn't mean I was clear, and to the extent I wasn't, you have my apologies.

you ought to at least give my criticism serious thought, rather than evade it. — Sapientia

I don't wish to evade anything, dearest Internet poster. Would you care to summarize the main thrust of your criticism? In reading this thread, I thought you seemed to have come to some understanding of what I was trying to say in light of Soylent's helpful comments, but perhaps not. I will try my best to clarify whatever points confuse you.

Yes, well said, BC. Vielen dank.

What do you do when you realise you're desiring not to desire? — WhiskeyWhiskers

Excellent comment. I've long thought about just this very thing. Here too, though, I would answer this question by distinguishing between a notional or theoretical desire and desire as a lived, felt experience. So I desire (i.e. have the thought) not to desire (i.e. crave or become attached to impermanent things as if they were permanent).

celibacy, if you are celibate, chances are you will have pent-up sexual urges and desires which will only remind you of the very thing you are trying to evade. — darthbarracuda

No, for once again, these desires are not pent up but rather redirected towards other things or dissipated to such an extent that they no longer trouble one.

I'm not sure how exactly you became so thoroughly confused about my position, but I think Soylent has admirably explained it to you, and I thank him for it.

Priests don't assent to anti-natalism, but very specifically believe in being fruitful and multiplying — Hanover

There are two points you miss here: 1) based on my distinction, they practically assent to anti-natalism (or anatalism, as I would have it), if not theoretically.

2) Many Church Fathers and Christian theologians have not interpreted the command to "be fruitful and multiply" as relating to procreation. Some see it as urging the reader to multiply one's virtues. Others see it as referring to multiplying one's spiritual children, that is, as a call for evangelization. Finally, consider that man fell before this commandment could be realized, so that God’s ideal family was never realized. Biological children are only born after the fall, perhaps as a punishment for man's sin.

Do you guys really think that celibacy is the cure to your various physical and emotional challenges or is that just a comforting thing to tell yourself because you aren't getting laid? — Hanover

This ad hominem is something I would expect a fraternity boy to utter, not someone on a philosophy forum.

Straight marriages produce gay men, so keep up the good work! — Bitter Crank

Hehe. This reminds me St. Jerome, who reputedly said, "I praise marriage because it produces more virgins." This might be the only argument in favor of marriage I could assent to.

Personally, I find all this talk of telos and natural law to be a bit unscientific and definitely problematic in terms of the is-ought gap. The Catholic Church tries to defend natural law by saying that natural, male-female sex during marriage is the only way to achieve human flourishing - a doctrine that I find blatantly absurd. — darthbarracuda

Thank you for clarifying. This is not quite the same notion of natural law that grounds my position. Deliberate frustration of a being's will I call wrong. This is why I find abortion wrong, since it deliberately frustrates the will of the fetus to live. I think I spoke of harm earlier, but the harm here is metaphysical in nature, so my argument doesn't depend on the fetus feeling pain. In the case of homosexual acts, I would probably regard them as foolish rather than immoral, which is essentially how I view procreation. No harm has occurred, so they cannot be wrong, but in both cases, those engaged in such acts are operating under delusions about the nature of themselves and the world.

Could you elaborate?

I see absolutely no positive value or reason to engage in sexual activity. All the possible arguments in favor of it boil down to it feeling good. I for one am thoroughly uninterested in "feeling good" merely for its own sake just as I am with "being happy." To hell with pleasure and happiness. There's nothing special about the rush of dopamine in the brain. It just nudges one towards a futile cycle of addiction, clinical or not.

How can an unconscious entity have any desires? — darthbarracuda

I'm tempted to say this ought to be self-evident. All living things have desires they seek to fulfill. This is simply the nature of life itself. Humans are unique solely in that they are aware of said desires. And even then, we are often not aware of many desires we have that lurk in our subconscious.

First, many priests do, for example, release sexual tension via masturbation. — Agustino

Perhaps. I wouldn't make "possible health benefits" the only or even the primary reason to be celibate, though. It's more like an added bonus, if true.

My hypothesis is that a strong relationship, when both partners care deeply about each other, are loyal and faithful, are of similar intellectual capabilities, etc. is the best for one's health. — Agustino

Maybe so. But I still wouldn't see the need for any consummation. In fact, I wouldn't be opposed to such a relationship myself. It's just that I would have no interest in consummating it. I'm not sure what one would call that either. A celibate marriage is a bit of an oxymoron, but that would be sort of the idea.

YouTube isn't much better, haha. — darthbarracuda

Yeah, I've seen a few Gary videos, for example. At times he seems to make some good points. At other times, he seems woefully ignorant of what he's talking about.

A fetus does not have a "will", a "telos", to live. — darthbarracuda

I'm not thinking of "will" in terms of an end, but in terms of a desire. The fetus, like anything living, desires to live, whether it is conscious of this fact or not. So to abort is to harm it in that one is forcibly denying its will to live. We might have different preconceptions of what constitutes wrongdoing, though.

You argued that the fetus has a will to live that should be respected, but what if this fetus grows up to be a suicidal person who hates living? — darthbarracuda

I don't think I understand the relevance of this. Regardless, the suicidal person still wishes to live. In fact, as I have remarked before, no one wishes to live more than the suicide. It's just that they perceive too many obstacles in the way of living.

I'm neither an anti-natalist nor a non-natalist nor a-natalist, — Bitter Crank

I don't think that's possible.

You do a good job laying out a case for your position though, and if it works for you, that is what is important. — Bitter Crank

Well thank you. :)

Stay the hell away from some of those subreddits. They are toxic and filled with extraordinarily narrow-sighted people. I think I had maybe one or two "decent" discussions over on them; the rest were all a bunch of pretentious teenagers bitching about how much they hate their mothers or how they don't like having to wake up for school. — darthbarracuda

Haha, this was more or less my impression as well, from what little I've visited of it.

Also, is your problem with his promotion of abortion that of natural law? — darthbarracuda

I think so, at least as far as I understand your question. A human fetus has the same natural right to live as its mother or any other sentient being. To abort it is to commit wrongdoing because to do so expressly denies the will of the fetus to live. Once a woman becomes pregnant, it is too late to bring up arguments about preventing suffering. The salient deed to which I would object has already been done.

Granted, though, I still find birth in most cases to be merely unnecessary instead of blatantly immoral. — darthbarracuda

Yes, this is precisely my thinking on this.

Without being too personal and graphic, I do release sexual tension occasionally, and afterwards I feel very relieved and relaxed. From my perspective, having all those (natural) pent-up urges and hormones makes me very unfocused and stressed. Now you could definitely make the argument that this is exactly what enslavement is, but is it enslavement if we are comfortable with it? The Buddha taught the middle path between extreme hedonism and excessive asceticism, and I think this might be a good time to invoke his teachings. — darthbarracuda

Well, like birth, satisfying the sexual impulse is not necessary. It may not me immoral either, but it certainly does inhibit the achievement of certain goals that one may wish to strive for. The serious practitioner of Buddhism, i.e. the monk or nun, and even the Buddha himself, are still far more ascetic than even I am. The eight precepts forbid among other things all sexual activity. So the Middle Way is not to do with settling on the medium sized drink at the drive thru but forging a path between the extreme asceticism of the Hindu sadhus and all forms of worldliness. I suppose you could try to apply it as a sort of Aristotelian golden mean in daily life, but that's not how it was originally proposed.

To be comfortable in one's slavery is still to be a slave and to accept and rejoice in the fact. If one is not at the very least bothered by how much one is swayed by the passions and various external stimuli, then one has capitulated to them both mentally and physically. I don't wish to do so. On the other hand, I don't mind language, such as one finds in Christianity, about becoming a slave to virtue, Christ, or what have you. The whole idea of asceticism is to become a "slave" not to the world but its denial. But this is clearly to speak metaphorically.

I think that sounds right, yes. Perhaps we can make a distinction, as Kant and Schopenhauer do, between immanent and transcendent metaphysics. For them, only the former is legitimate, since language is expressly built for immanent knowledge. The latter is really just disguised theology, not philosophy.

Perhaps "non-natalism" would be a better term? — darthbarracuda

Yeah, that works too.

The strong-antinatalist tends to be associated with such movements as the complete eradication of all life on earth, permanently and immediately. I'm not sure if you have ever wasted some of your time reading some of the philosophy behind the fringe group "efilism" (life spelled backwards) but it is basically that life is just absolutely horrible and needs to be exterminated. — darthbarracuda

Yes, I'm aware of those guys and find them very far from the position I would want to identify with. I started visiting the AN subreddit recently as well and found the community there not that great overall. In fact, pretty much the whole AN community, at least as it exists on the internet, I find to be irritating and disagreeable. And as for its manifestation in print, I'm not a fan of Benatar (since I'm not a utilitarian and have moral qualms about his advocacy of abortion) and find Ligotti, Crawford, and their ilk rather unsophisticated and pretentious.

This guy is perhaps the only one I find tolerable and even enjoyable.

I share your views on birth, but I believe that sex is an important aspect of someone's health. — darthbarracuda

I don't know about that. It seems to me that Catholic priests and monks, Buddhist monks, and Hindu ascetics are pretty fit, free of many illnesses common to the general public, and usually live extremely long lives. So it seems rather a boon than a detriment to one's health.

Abstaining from all sexual encounters and/or actions is, in my view, unhealthy in that it builds up stress and perhaps even loneliness in some people. — darthbarracuda

It need not do this if one replaces or redirects the sexual impulse towards other things.

Do you abstain out of asceticism? — darthbarracuda

This seems slightly oddly worded to me. I suppose I can say that I do try to live up to ascetic ideals, though.

I see the attraction towards asceticism but have always been turned off in the end because the complete rejection of all pleasure seems very artificial, and only reminds me of why I'm trying to be an ascetic in the first place. — darthbarracuda

Is it the rejection of all pleasure or only of a certain kind of pleasure? Asceticism need not lead to stoicism, in the common sense of that word. It certainly rejects the pleasures of the flesh, otherwise known as the "hedonic treadmill," so if you define pleasure only in this sense, then I suppose you are right to assert that asceticism involves the rejection of pleasure. But it still involves something positive, that of becoming closer to or reaching the goal for which one practices asceticism in the first place. The Greek roots of the word tell us that it is a form of exercise or self-discipline. If one has no self-discipline, one is effectively a slave.

Both. I try to do the former and definitely do the latter.

So, what is the difference between these claims, other than one has a religion based upon it and the others don't? — darthbarracuda

The difference is that metaphysical claims are critical and religious claims non-critical. They may share the same unverifiable status, but one proceeds by logical argumentation and the other by appeals to authority.

All of metaphysics is unverifiable and limited to our own, rather small, perspective. So as much as I enjoy thinking about metaphysical questions, the anti-Realist position is the only position that makes sense, which means that traditional metaphysics is nonsense. — darthbarracuda

The claim that it is nonsense is a non-sequitur. Simply because its claims cannot be empirically verified doesn't mean they are false or meaningless, unless you assume that all empirically unverifiable claims are either false or meaningless.

I would say metaphysical claims are confirmed by the individual's experience of the world. I experience the world a certain way, this is indisputable, and the metaphysician simply tries to construct in language this very same pre/non-linguistic experience of the world.

I would like to know more about "the brief window when philosophy could have replaced religion as the glue of society". — Bitter Crank

I would look at someone like Schopenhauer, who estranged himself from the academy, called his followers "disciples," and thought of his philosophy as a kind of surrogate religion for people who could no longer believe the old religious dogmas at face value nor embrace the crude materialism and hedonism on the rise as the major response to formal religion.

I would have envisioned something like the re-flowering of how ancient Greek philosophy operated, with its many independent schools of thought, each encouraging a certain metaphysic and way of life non-dogmatically. It would be akin to the development of a philosophical monasticism.

With this in mind, the conclusion to this would be that all scientists are philosophers, but not all philosophers are scientists. — darthbarracuda

This has been historically the case until quite recently. Until the 19th century, most scientists were called, and called themselves, "natural philosophers." They still are, only that their name has changed to "scientists."

Unfortunately, I believe this ability has been neglected, leading to a general nihilism and apathy towards the field. — darthbarracuda

I think this is in part due to the professionalization of the field. It's perceived to be an academic department at a university instead of the search for wisdom.

So, someone can only know there is no god if there is no god and he has a justified belief there is no god. — Hanover

Correct. That's why I said the strong version is a claim about the nature of reality.

At any rate, if we change the word "knows" to "believes" in my quote of you above, I don't agree with the statement. You have defined "strong agnostic" how I would define "atheist." An agnostic does not know whether there is God or not because he's unable to arrive at an adequate justification for his belief one way or the other. An atheist does not know (he only believes such) there is a God unless you're either (1) stipulating there actually is no God and he believes it, or (2) you're equivocating with the term "know" and just using it to emphasize the strength of his belief (as in, e.g., "I just knew Clemson would beat Alabama, but it didn't work out that way"). — Hanover

All of this is impenetrable to me, I'm afraid. At the risk of repeating myself too many times, I will only emphasize once more that these terms OVERLAP. They are not totally mutually exclusive. They answer different questions but they are perfectly compatible with each other.