You bring something into the realm of legality. Some things are neither legal or illegal. To confer a right you bring it into the legal framework.

To give someone a right to have child brings the issue into the legal framework. Before that stage it is neither legal or illegal. In trivial way everything is legal until it is made illegal.

However there is a difference between something being legal by default or because it is not legislated against and asserting a right. For example some drugs like cocaine were legal or simply not legislated for until they became illegal. Now some people want recreational drugs made legal.

So I think if someone claims we have a right to have children I think they have to give a substantial argument for that and likewise for the counter position.

But as they say The Law is an ass. You seemed to be compelled by the idea that having children is a legal right.

Is that basically your default--everything should be illegal unless there's a good reason to make it legal? — Terrapin Station

I am not talking about legality but rather conferring rights.

People do not have the right to sexually abuse children. if someone wanted to make that legal they would have to give a really compelling reason for it.

There are actually thousands upon thousands of laws. These days most things have a legal component. There is not much that you are automatically entitled to do. People have to pay for essential needs like water and shelter.

That is why it is absurd that anyone can have children without showing any capacity to rear a child and without having any resources. If the parent fails to care for the child then society is given the responsibility of paying for it and rearing it.

I think the idea that having children is a natural right is what lies behind the reluctance to discourage people from having children or to make it harder to do so.

Suffering is undesirable but it is not undesirable because of personal preference. No one with a working nervous system could hold their hand in fire for a long period.

But that said no personal preference can really be chosen in a subjective way. If someone is allergic to strawberries that is an objective fact or if they dislike the taste of meat..

Opinions on the other hand are a different and a more trivial thing. That is why morality as an opinion is weak. You can alter your opinions but you can't alter your pain sensations by will.

I don't think people should have a right to have children or believe they have that right. I think there has to be a good reason for proposing a right.

For example the right not to be enslaved is a response to the harm of slavery.

Legal rights obtain via people who have the power to do so, because of their social position--because of how others treat them in a social context, that is--codifying and subsequently enforcing edicts in some manner. So what gives them any power is the social context. Social behavior where people treat some others as having authority, both to make proclamations and to enforce them. — Terrapin Station

Suicide used to be illegal but that didn't stop people committing suicide.

I don't know why you think the legal right to have a child would justify having a child? There is nothing metaphysically impressive or infallible about the law. Slavery used to be legal.

I think one of the problems with having children is that you can do it without any skill or qualification or planning or justification.

Why would you need to talk about desired states when describing suffering? Suffering and injury do not need definition to exist. I am not sure what definition you are referring to.

Here is two dictionary definitions of pain anyway:

1:Highly unpleasant physical sensation caused by illness or injury.
2:mental suffering or distress

Either I answered your question or I failed to understand it.

I don't see how desire plays any part in whether someones is factually suffering or injured. I really don't believe pain only occurs because of desire. I hope you don't believe that.

legal rights — Terrapin Station

I don't see what gives legal rights any power. Anyone can make up a legal right.

In Europe and many other places the state will take someones child off them if they consider them an unfit parent. So every day decisions are made to prevent people having access to children.

I don't see a good justification for having a child and gambling with someone else's well being

I don't think you can justify creating someone else. It creates a large imposition on someone else. The person can justifiably feel angry at having been created and has obligations.

I think the problem is people can just ignore moral claims and act.

What makes the cessation of life harmful? We are going to die anyway. What is the thing of value we want to perpetuate? Hopefully there is a better after life I think.

And how do we define injury and suffering so that we avoid desired versus not-desired states? — Terrapin Station

You can see an injury and people can suffer. People don't desire to suffer usually but that is irrelevant to the state itself.

Nevertheless in this thread I am talking about whether life compromises all theories of morality not whether these theories are true. But I don't think one persons preference for or against life decides the inherent nature of life.

On your view it's harmful because? — Terrapin Station

Because it causes injury and suffering.

It's a way of saying that someone desires state x but state y is obtaining instead. — Terrapin Station

I think being in a state of pain is harmful. It is not harmful because you desire to be in another state. I think that it is only very personal states like food or music preferences where harm is subjective.

I am not sure what the point of your morality is? But you definitely seem nihilistic about morality. I would agree with those who say a subjective morality is a nihilistic morality

So the “moral” thing for us all to do is kill ourselves to prevent future “harm” I guess .. — I like sushi

You can just refrain from creating more humans.

Life is harmful? Harmful to what? Harmful to life?

So the logic goes that life is immoral because it is harmful to life.

Do I need to point out the problem with that kind of logic? — I like sushi

I don't see a problem with those statements.

Life is harmful to those that possess it or constitute it. Life is immoral because it transgresses any moral standards we create. So for example if we value consent and freedom the means of creating life undermines consent and freedom.

Someone can be harmful to herself or beneficial to herself.

You can dispute whether life is immoral but I don't think you can dispute that it is harmful.

I think it is a short step from harmful to immoral.

I think if someone cannot tell the difference between serious harm and altruism then their perceptual system or conceptualizing scheme is broken

That brings us to the thought ... If life favored immorality, destruction, all would be destroyed like a monster of destruction that devours everything until there is nothing left but to devour itself. — Athena

I don't see why immorality would favor self destruction. You could argue that the continuation of life allows for the continuation of suffering and immorality. Hope is like a soporific drug.

I do wonder about the presence of good. It is true that life could be terrible all the time for everyone but it isn't. So it is hard to believe in a completely malicious God.

However you could say that a moral judgement comes after life starts to exists so the judgement is created by the data. Life just happens to tend in a certain direction.

In other words, you and many other people would have a very strong reaction against their disposition. Yeah, no shit. That your reaction is strong or common doesn't make it something other than an individual judgment. — Terrapin Station

You appear to be giving the individuals preference as the only reason something is wrong. But this is not like someones preference for beef over pork.

I don't think people find mass suffering wrong simply because of the emotional response they have to it.

Everyone is a “slave” then. — I like sushi

You can argue that people are slaves for various reasons. I do not believe that transatlantic slavery is the only form of slavery.

I think there is an extent to which parents own their children. I experienced this as a child and had no rights, I had to go to church up to 5 times a week and my parents believed in total obedience and complete parental authority.

I think most people are forced to work because not working isn't viable so that people are not making a genuine choice. None of this is to say that Historical slavery is not worse. Although it is quite possible to have a terrible quality of life in his era.

How about metempsychosis (reincarnation), cause and effect (also reflected in the idea of heaven and hell), evolution, atman (the divine self), etc, are just a few points of view that come to mind and which seem to justify morality. — BrianW

These kind of positions and religious positions do add another dimension of value but it dependents on whether there is any evidence for them.

I find reincarnation problematic ethically because it seems that if you do not know who or what you were in a previous life then you don't know where you are coming from or heading. I have a real fear I might be being punished in my current circumstances because of the chance i was a nasty person n a former life.

I think biblical morality and Gods conduct is problematic. There are contradictions among other things. But I think the fallen world/angry gods myths have been a powerful narrative to try and justify suffering.

Again, you can think whatever you like. The fact is that evaluations of anything, including the Holocaust, are made by individuals. They're not made by anything else. — Terrapin Station

But if someone evaluates genocide to be a good thing that would be patently absurd.

Somethings cause so much suffering and destruction that to claim they were good would make the notion of good meaningless. However if someone enjoys rough sex and getting whipped then that is in the realm of personal preference.

Also if you were dying of cancer it seems that only you can evaluate the situation and what it feels like. Which then makes someone else's evaluation irrelevant.

I think morality can be what you want it to be. For some people motivation is the most important aspect of morality ( like virtue ethicists). But for others consequences are the main concern like utilitarians. Utilitarians can refer to objective states of affairs to measure the impact of behavior on the world.

My main position here is probably a utilitarian calculation where suffering outweighs pleasure objectively.

The aggression is due to the presence of carnivores (humans mainly). — Devans99

"When male fig wasps, Idarnes spp., hatch inside the fig they attempt to decapitate their brothers that hatch in the same fig, attacking them with large and powerful mandibles (Hamilton 1967). Similarly, male elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) may kill rivals during fights over access to females (Hayley 1994) and male fallow deer (Dama dama) employ violent head-on "jump clashes" during the rut at the start of the breeding season (Jennings et al. 2005). In these three examples, aggressive behavior is being used by each rival in order to maximize its chances of success in a conflict over who gets to mate with the available females. "

https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/territoriality-and-aggression-13240908

Morality is how one feels about interpersonal behavior that one considers to be more significant than mere etiquette. — Terrapin Station

I disagree with this. Morality can mean lots of things. How does this view of morality describe events like genocide?

The same thing goes for something like a utilitarian calculus. That can only work on an individual "rating" things much in the manner that one would rate movies, albums, etc. You rate whether you feel positive or negative towards it — Terrapin Station

I don't think an individuals opinion on an event like the Holocaust is relevant. A genocide or large war is clearly extremely harmful in a way that would make someones opinion on it or reaction to it inconsequential.

You’re talking nonsense. Slavery has all but disappeared — I like sushi

"Contemporary slavery, also known as modern slavery or neo-slavery, refers to institutional slavery that continues to exist in present day society. Estimates of the number of slaves today range from around 21 million[1] to 70 million, depending on method used to estimate and the definition of slavery being used"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century

I think Hope is a good thing but not false hope.

As for carnivorous animals; I think we should cull them all. Any overpopulation problems can be dealt with via chemical neutering of the offending species — Devans99

Wouldn't it be better to feed them ourselves rather than make them extinct. Scientists have successfully grown meat in a lab.

I don't think you can manufacture a Disneyland Nature that is what I said earlier about fantasy. Fantasy allows us to inhabit what is not really the case.

Also herbivores can cause death as well. Herbivores can be very aggressive. Not all aggression involves eating meat. Herbivores also compete with each other and will damage their environment.

I don't think you can have a morality that is based on Good versus evil with no shades of grey.

Slavery is far from gone. The official slave trade has been replaced by large numbers of exploited workers. A significant amount of people work for no pay. People are trapped in war zones coerced into work or will sell their labor for next to nothing unfortunately.

I wonder why you want to judge the world, instead of living in it? So, in answer to your question, a non-judgmental perspective is what you're after, by the sound of it. — Pattern-chaser

It is not mutually exclusive that you either live in the world or assess its value.

I think at the very least we should try and improve life as much as possible (or that is my personal preference.)

I am a supporter of truth and authenticity and what concerns me is whether life is being represented truthfully and authentically or not.

f only we could extend the care for one another attitude to the animals; as the dominant species on the planet we are running a prison camp where the prisoners (animals) are killed and eaten. Not cool — Devans99

How do you explain humans history of of war, and slavery and genocide?

How can death be a positive.

All organisms die.

Animals in the wild die of things like being eaten, starvation, the weather, malnutrition and injury.

For example the most common cause of death for deer in North America is starvation

I think you can have a world or a life that is good or quite good but with room for improvement. Anyway isn't that ultimate goal of morality for people to be moral.

We want to eradicate murder but keep the commandment "Thou shalt not kill."

So you could have a near perfect society and still have moral rules about unacceptable behavior even if these rules were rarely broken.

I am looking for a justification for claiming life or reality is a good.I want to be wrong in my conclusion
that it is immoral/amoral

It seems to me that people are always working towards improving the world and creating fantasies of how they would like things to be and indulging in fantasies to make life more bearable.

So for example someone might find pleasure from reading romantic fiction where the story has an idyllic outcome and they might also aspire to be in such a scenario but their reality may never be that.

I did this kind of thing as a child where I was kept positive by hope until reality became too much to be combated by hope

But I feel it is probably best to confront how life is actually is as accurately as possible in order to improve it. (That is not to say that we might be wrong in some of our negative appraisals.)

But what are the motivations of humans/animals? They seek physical/emotional pleasure and shun physical/emotional pain. There are no other motives. — Devans99

I have the motive of gaining knowledge and finding the truth.

You would certainly not call a painful injury good so by process of elimination it must be evil? — Devans99

The irony about physical pain is it prevents serious Injury. People with congenital pain conditions or who lose pain sensation later die younger of serious injuries.

Personally I do not judge illness and pains I experience as evil in themselves I tend to attribute evil to things with motives.

I think that you cannot justify the step of going from pain to evil and pleasure to good. Pain and pleasure refer to feelings/sensations whereas good and evil are more conceptual and evaluative.

Another example is that people including Michael J Fox claim that a serious illness turned them into a better person. Hedonism can be seen as selfish and debauched or shallow.

Don't you think that what people are doing in defining it is attempting an abstraction/general/overarching conception of their intuitions? — Terrapin Station

I think it is more labeling as opposed to abstracting.

Think of how many times groups of people have been vilified by negative language, women, Jews, gays, blacks and so on.

Another things that happens is when natural occurrences are labelled evil then described as punishments or karma. It is a too black and white world view. If people think pain is evil or disaster and misfortune are then they wonder what did Ii or we do to deserve this evil.

It can be argued that the process of moralizing causes its own sets of serious harms.

I am talking about the process of identifying good and evil. I don't think pleasure and pain identify what evil and good are.

I would not consider a painful injury evil and I would certainly not call all pleasure good such as the pleasures Nazi's or slave owners experienced.

I think identifying what is an evil act is complicated when you analyse a scenario. For example is it evil for us to buy goods manufactured in China which is a brutal regime with no human rights committing many abuses of its populace regions and minorities?.

I don't think it is meaningful just to identify pleasure and a pain. But what I am saying is before you need to define evil you should already have a consciousness it. For example if you see someone kicking a dog to death it seems ludicrous to need to go beyond the immediate manifestation to work out if it is evil.

I think complex forms of evil like exploitation where you have to follow a chain of causality and blame do not succumb easily to a pain-pleasure analysis. Therefore it needs a more sophisticated intuition or investigation including intention.

It seems inappropriate to have to define good and evil.

Shouldn't good and evil be identified or discovered rather than labelled?

Otherwise you can arbitrarily label anything good or evil.

I don't think that covers all moral sentiments. Are you saying that covers all moral claims?

People also value character and principle.

People would say you should not steal even if it didn't cause harm, such as stealing from a big company or stealing without detection, because of principle and character reasons.
Likewise most people would oppose defiling a corpse even though the person is dead.

Motivation is also important. For example if you gave thousands of pounds to charity in order to look good you would look good but your character would be called into questions.

I think the reason bad behavior causes pain is often because of the psychological judgement you make not because of the action. That is to say the pain is worst after you discover you have been wronged. Hence pain and pleasure could be caused by the act of making a moral judgement.

I think the most important aspect of morality is enforcement. It is useless to have moral sentiments that do not lead to action and do not prevent harm or cause well being.

I think either moral standards have to be enforced by the law/police/society etc or by afterlife scenarios or karma.

I don't think that because a moral stance is reached subjectively that it is untrue. The problem is when people act on there false or dubious intuitions and "resolve" a moral issue that way. In comparison a scientists may have an intuition and theory and go about testing it carefully and cautiously to see if it is valid.

I think either we have to wait for karma or afterlife justice or fight to have our moral position enforced (rather like people who fought to end slavery/sexism etc) But I think the lack of clear moral truths is worrying.

The subjective/objective distinction has nothing to do with agreement or a lack of agreement — Terrapin Station

I think an agreement is objective. You can't compare mental states.

t's not at all the case that people are always sure how they feel. — Terrapin Station

I do not see how that helps your case. If people cannot decide for instance whether abortion is right or wrong then the moral issue remains unresolved.

If someone opposes abortion one day and agrees with it next week that inconsistency undermines a subjective workable notion of morality. However based on the subjective view they were right on both occasions because they are the final arbiter of morality.


I have no problem with the idea that people can have false beliefs and change how they feel but that is why a subjective morality does not work. Personal I base my moral intuitions on external facts about harm and attitudes etc.

I think that we have a purely subjective moral system despite what anyone wants or what anyone believes we have instead of that. — Terrapin Station

What about when morality is put to the vote? If a moral system is widely accepted and democratically endorsed then I don't think it can be purely subjective.

I think a purely subjective moral scheme would not be a morality. In this scenario which would be egocentric and the individual would always be right. However if an objective fact could persuade them otherwise it would no longer be a purely subjective morality.

I don't see why morality should be about wallowing in your own preferences as opposed to trying to reveal some kind of empirical truth. I think the truth may be that we have to be moral agnostics.

Can one justify trying to survive in the first place with pure reason? — macrosoft

I think lack of justification is a good restraint. I think the intuition or simple belief that you action or belief is justified can be very harmful.

Lack of justification does not defend good OR bad behavior. So how would people behave without false beliefs and a false sense of justification?

I think reason can lead to negative conclusions but does that mean we should abandon it?

I do think there is a lingering specter of nihilism where both reason and unreason can lead to it. But I don't think morality should be soporific and something that acts like a sticking plaster on anesthetic.