So not only is god omnibenevolent, he doesn't allow injustices. So you actually think these people deserved what they got. Good on you, Batricks, you fucking psycho. I'll be sure to tell someone who got their legs blown off by an IED that god just exposed them to equal risk of harm as the child-murderer and that he computed the outcome with a god-computer but still allowed him to get his legs blown off and the child-murderer to walk free.

I still think that your view is the counterintuitive one. What about the preacher who develops Huntington's and the child-murderer that walks free and healthy? What about the injured veterans who fought in wars ostensibly out of a selfless desire to protect their country that get little more than a percentage? How are these people getting their just deserts?

If I am told to be kind, generous, and so on, I can infer - fairly safely, though not infallibly - that the person issuing such instructions really likes kindness and generosity. — Bartricks

Who is telling us and how?

And from that I can infer - again, not entirely reliably - that this person is therefore probably kind and generous themselves. — Bartricks

I mean, psychopaths can come off as charming and relatable - even compassionate - if they are more competent at deception than the average person. Someone who is making that much effort to come off as benevolent might not actually be so benevolent.

You quite literally said that we can infer god's characteristics from our own. How is that not believing that we are created in god's image?

If a child comes to some great harm, doesn't the badness of that reside in the fact the child is innocent? — Bartricks

I would think that it is worse for a harm to befall a child because they are developing and trauma could cause them to become maladjusted. Or so I think, at least - I'm no psychologist.

We use our reason. Our faculty of reason is our source of insight into what is right and good. And from such intuitions we can infer something about God's character. So, God hates it when people are unkind. I infer that from the fact that we all seem bid - and bid in no uncertain terms - be kind. God is clearly pro kindness, then. And God seems to hate unkindness so much that he wants those who are unkind to come to harm. I infer that from the fact my reason tells me that if someone is unkind, they deserve to come to harm. — Bartricks

You are assuming that god created us in his image, a decidedly Theistic thing to believe. How can we know that? What about evolutionary biology? Does that not do a better job of explaining human nature than a sermon (no matter how good of a sermon it is)?

And where do I say otherwise? You don't seem to understand my position. If God exists, he does not allow injustices to occur. He's good and omnipotent, for goodness sake! — Bartricks

I don't believe justice is necessarily a permutation of omnibenevolence unless god makes justice an objective, moral necessity.

According to what criterion can we determine if God is unjust? What set of rules do we have that give us an idea of whether or not we are each being punished justly? Is it not counter-intuitive to believe that god would allow a child-murderer to live in better health than a pious, god-fearing preacher that develops Huntington's?

That's just question begging. As I keep pointing out, being good doesn't involve indiscriminately preventing harms - it matters who is coming to harm. Good people among us do not campaign to release prisoners from jails, do we? We're not less good for that. They deserve to be there and releasing them would pose a great danger to others. — Bartricks

I would campaign to release all non-violent drug offenders, like any other good person would. And no, I'm not committing your favorite fallacy. I'm saying if god allows people to come to disproportionate harm then he is unjust - not unjust for not preventing all harm.

So you accept that this is a world full of wrongdoers - full of people who deserve to come to harm of one sort or another. And it is a world in which they do! — Bartricks

Never said I think people deserve to come to harm; even despicable people need to be loved and rehabilitated. If harm befalls them during this process then so be it, but other than that I don't think anyone deserves harm.

Yes, he could - that's one option, one possibility. But it seems more efficient and consistent with being good to expose people to a risk of harm, rather than actually to mete the harm out oneself. I also think God would be ignorant of much of what goes on here, for why would God trouble himself to find out what people he hates are getting up to? — Bartricks

Is god aware of what is going to happen to people or not? If so he is unjust if the harm incurred by different people is disproportionate to their guilt. If not he is not omniscient*.

Yes, he could - that's one option, one possibility. But it seems more efficient and consistent with being good to expose people to a risk of harm, rather than actually to mete the harm out oneself. I also think God would be ignorant of much of what goes on here, for why would God trouble himself to find out what people he hates are getting up to? — Bartricks

But he is omniscient. How could he be ignorant of anything? And what is the difference between meting out the punishment and allowing a horrible fate to befall one that could be easily prevented? And even if everyone is merely exposed to the same risk of harm then that too is disproportionate to people's guilt, because we are not all equally guilty (presumably).

And why the everlasting fuck would god be concerned with efficiency? He can do anything he wants whenever he wants and can exist for as long as he wants. Do you think he conjures up computers and simulates different eventualities? Oh, that's right, he wouldn't - because he's god.

There's a gap between what god commands and what we do, a point at which we make a decision to do as commanded or not. — Banno

I think I see what you are getting at, and I definitely like it. But how does one's decision determine anything? If god commands something is right, isn't it right independent of what we do or think?

I mean I appreciate the weight you are giving us as choice-makers, but how does that mean anything in the face of omnipotence?

And I'm sure some, including myself, will always be rebels, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be honest about what we're rebelling against.

But we would need to know the commands are definitely infallible, and I see no way of confirming that. So DCT still sucks.

If god determines with his power that an act is good one ought to do it then - which is different from having a disembodied command to do something. If he issued a mere command to do something your argument would make sense: one could justifiably refuse to follow his commands and remain moral; our own faculties and agency would indeed be paramount.

This isn't deriving an ought from an is but rather following an infallible command, the very content of which instructs an ought.

One ought to do what is good, right?

What a pity? What is a pity? That I'm trying to be honest here?

That's what I'm questioning. It's the naturalistic fallacy as much as the Euthyphro. Consider the open question: is it right to eat babies? You know that it isn't. If you claim that it is because god commands it, you are simply acquiescing to a tyrant. — Banno

Look, it is undeniable: if god is omnipotent then anything can be moral. Unless there is a law that god cannot change that says that it is wrong to eat and torture babies, god overrules our own intuitive moral faculties.

All of this being said, yes, fuck what any god has to say about morality. I would rather be wrong than acquiesce to a tyrant too. We are better off exploring these questions on our own, especially considering there is no way of knowing if we have actually encountered the revelation of an actual god or some sort of super-powerful being that just seems omnipotent and omniscient.

And I actually think that the people pretending to be Bartricks come up with some pretty brilliant arguments.

It might be disgusting and horrible and no one would actually do it, but you have to admit that if god is omnipotent he can make anything moral, no matter how ostensibly despicable.

You have linked Euthyphro's dilemma in other threads. You aren't ignorant. Why play dumb?

Isn't it open to you here to say that god is wrong? Wouldn't this be a situation in which the moral thing to do would be to condemn god? — Banno

What I meant is that if god deems such an act to be moral it is moral. My bad. Btw, I think Bartricks is taking the more repugnant horn of the dilemma.

This is exactly it. Omnibenevolence is a restraint on what we do, because there is some greater purpose than our own personal whims. An omnipotent God could decide that we should torture and eat all of our babies, but an omnibenevolent God would not. — Philosophim

I disagree: if god commands us to eat and torture babies it could be moral, although it is so intuitively heinous that hardly anyone would do it. My point is more that omnibenevolence loses all meaning when god can arbitrarily decide what is moral and simultaneously create rules that only apply to himself or change what is moral to suit his own aims at any time.

Thought about it some more: the whole omnibenevolence thing seems weaker with a god that can arbitrarily change what is good whenever he wants. Technically I think it can be retained, but it isn't as meaningful as it is with a god that commands what is good because it is good because god could potentially change morality at any time and commit any act and still be omnibenevolent. A truly omnibenevolent god would command that morality cannot be changed and relinquish his omnipotence in the process.

Then God is not an Omnibenevolent being. Its a being that simply creates laws for others to live by. If God says, "It is good to torture your babies and eat them," then that's a law. It doesn't mean God is perfectly good. What is good is independent of God, that is why God is omnibenevolent. God follows what is good, despite being all powerful. — Philosophim

God can be omnibenevolent even if he determines arbitrarily what is good by adhering to the laws he creates, or by stipulating that he has his own set of laws to follow, according to your reasoning here; you just add the step of creating objective moral laws and, optionally, a set of rules only for god.

I mean, if god never breaks a moral law he must be omnibenevolent, right? Regardless of who makes the laws?

Reason trumps revelation, for either you have a reason to believe you have experienced a revelation, or you do not. And in the latter case you have no reason to think in the truth of the supposed revelation. And in the former case, Reason is acknowledged to have the greater authority. — Bartricks

How on earth can one have reason to believe that they have received revelation other than some sort of subjective experience? Furthermore, how would reason have greater authority than the revelation received? It is quite literally the word of god, so it cannot be challenged. Maybe reason can aid in its application, however?

What our punishments must be for our guilt is already known by god, so he knows exactly what each of us is going to be exposed to and could arrange the world in such a way as to make the punishments make sense if he wanted. Yet he doesn't do this. He just allows it to be determined by luck, as you say. Which isn't actually luck, because he must have known all of it ahead of time and could change it. If you say he doesn't know what we are are going to do because free will, then he isn't omniscient.

Thus, god punishes unjustly, and therefore is unjust. I don't know how that ties into omnibenevolence, but an unjust god seems undesirable.

If one freely does wrong, one thereby comes to deserve harm. That does not, of course, entail that others are obliged to give one the harm in question. It does, however, mean that it is not unjust for you to receive it. — Bartricks

In line with your god-theory-of-everything and the aseity argument contained therein this makes sense. But some choices are demonstrably unfree. If you want I can supply an example.

What we deserve, it seems to me, is to run the gauntlet. God made us run the gauntlet, and from there on in it's down to luck precisely what happens to us. — Bartricks

I sincerely doubt that anyone who has actually "run the gauntlet" would believe that others deserve to "run the gauntlet", even in the presence of a compelling argument for such a thing.

And if you want confirmation that we are living in a prison, just look around you at others, or look inside yourself. Notice that pretty much everyone you meet has some vice or other. And notice that you do too. — Bartricks

True enough.

I don't know. An evil god might allow innocents to suffer in ignorance, as the premise goes. Whether or not it qualifies as punishment requires motive. And if god breaks his own laws, even not via punishing people, then he could be considered evil. The point of my post is that while Bartricks' argument is sound academically, it requires some very specific revelation to make sense.



You might not have noticed, but Bartricks' argument gels a little too well with the idea of original sin; we are each given a static "guilty" value, equally weighed so that whatever suffering comes our way is well-deserved. He might keep his arguments vague, but they are almost always in service of Christianity.

Makes me wonder if he knows something we don't. Or, then again, maybe not.

And even if you have that specific piece of revelation, what makes it okay for god to mete out the punishments and not humans (or a chimp for that matter)? Guilt is guilt, and your comeuppance could reasonably come from anyone it seems to me - unless god stipulates that it is only he who can punish certain acts in certain ways. And if god doesn't make that stipulation, then, according to his own laws, he might be rendered not so omnibenevolent, and thus not exist. Or be evil. .

Furthermore, I don't see why guilt would necessarily require punishment in the mind of an omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent being. You must have received a specific piece of revelation supplied by god to come to the conclusion that guilt => punishment. And if you have that my other post applies - people who are innocent according to god might be being punished or punished more than those who are more guilty.

Great OP.

What about revelation? According to the holy texts supplied by the Christian god, for example, one could indeed be demonstrated to be totally innocent in the presence of a supposedly omnibenevolent god. And if one is innocent why would they potentially suffer more than someone who isn't innocent? This disjunction seems to indicate very little thought on the part of an omniscient, omnipotent person. And surely determining one's guilt against a set of interpretable but still infallible laws is a function of reason?

I don't see any 'wrong' or 'right' about it. The very question of it being right or wrong to have children is meaningless to me. I've tried to understand the AN point of view but there seems to be a disjoint in their thinking as some claim that they 'value life' yet, for all intents and purposes, wish human life to cease (quite literally). — I like sushi

I think they do value life insofar as they value people living on their own terms, something I got at earlier. People cannot always live on these terms - or even anywhere close to them a lot of the time, however.

Neither do they seem to understand that life without suffering is NOT life. Suffering isn't something inherently 'negative' it is just how we tend to view it overall. — I like sushi

It seems to me intense suffering and a strong will to live do not cancel each other out, and neither does the inevitable pain and sought-after happiness one will experience. Thus, the "overall" is not an equation to be balanced, but rather the sum of your often disparate experiences as you understand them, and, as such, if you believe that your perceived suffering is unnecessary, it is desirable to cut it out; no good is lost and the "overall" is still coherent. No one will cease living if they suffer less.

I get what you are saying though. Suffering is inevitable, but if gratuitous amounts of it can be prevented it should be.

Life is absurd. I'm okay with that and if it wasn't absurd I think I would likely have ended my life some time ago. The 'absurdity' makes it interesting. — I like sushi

Indeed.

It's true for me too. I've lived through some horrors. I don't regard that as any kind of justification for someone erasing my life once I hit that point of suffering ... if some understood what it was I felt they might likely think it 'better that I die, than suffer what I was suffering'. No thank you! — I like sushi

Of course.

edit: that was not sarcastic

This had nothing to do with having children though. A non-existent person is non-existent not a 'potential person'. Such word play may convince others and I understand that there are gray areas. I don't see the world as black and white though ... more of a gray mushy, marbled mess of interwoven shades . — I like sushi

All the more reason to believe that it isn't wrong to not take a great risk in bringing someone into the world. Or, if we do, to be careful about it.

If I was to take your point more seriously I can just as easily throw the same kind of thinking right back at AN thoughts. We have the instinct for procreation (evidence being we're part of a species that exists) and we also have a moral sense of responsibility in how we live (not in how we don't live). So the 'responsibility' is no more valid a point than 'procreating'. We have a sense of responsibility tied to our procreative abilities. I cannot see how it can be argued that these are separate to the point that one is on a pedestal but not the other. — I like sushi

Just because those two things exist simultaneously and without conflict much of the time doesn't mean that they do not conflict sometimes and that they are coequal. I am arguing that if reason is to guide our decisions and not instinct, which I think should usually be the case, then we should consider reasons for procreating - even in the absence of knowledge that the person conceived will or will not appreciate having been given life or suffer immensely.

As for responsibility being tied to instinct: I would say that instinct matters insofar as it creates a desire to procreate, but the reasoning behind whether or not someone should procreate is distinct; people rarely, if ever, admit that they are procreating merely out of instinct. They have all kinds of justifications: religious, ethical, practical, etc.

So while neither is on a pedestal, I don't think either one has to be for us to be prudent in giving life.

At its core it boils down to a self-contradiction or just an attitude that says because one, or more, persons suffer that it isn't a fair trade off. Life isn't 'fair' and it is silly to view existence as being 'fair' or 'unfair' - not that I have seen any AN admit this is basically where they are coming from — I like sushi

I agree that it is absurd to say that life is fair or unfair as if there is some part of oneself or one's experiences that is distinct from one's own life - or the self that experiences one's own life - that could somehow be compatible with a different existence; if your life was more fair it would be a different life and you would be different too. But as far as certain lives being genuinely horrible and painful, the idea of unfairness makes some sense - you aren't existing on the terms you would like to, which is true for a great many people, even if they are happy to be alive.

The question doesn't make any sense to me either. May as well ask if it is morally right that the sky appears to be blue. — I like sushi

We are not responsible for the sky being blue. It is just the way it is. But we are responsible for procreating - and we could stop or at least wonder why we do it; we can actually consider reasons for and against. I mean, do men get up on super-duper tall ladders in the wee hours of the morning and paint the sky blue every day? Maybe they would go on strike if we didn't pay them?

not all sentences with '?' at the end warrant a '?'. — I like sushi

Savage.

Yes it does. The most popular argument for example, the "it's an unconsented imposition that can be harmful so it's wrong" that I hear very often has the side effect that giving gifts is wrong unless you ask for permission first. It would also prevent you from, say, sending a kid to school. — khaled

I am not an anti-natalist, but if I were, then I would uphold all of the implications of my beliefs.

No to mention the harmful consequences of giving a crappy gift or sending a kid to school are significantly less than the wide range of horrible illnesses/conditions/disorders than can be inherited or developed throughout one's life; there are degrees of harm; having Huntington's disease is certainly worse than being bullied, for example.

Not to mention, if we were all anti-natalists, there would be no children to send to school.

Is a philosopher, then, like a troll guarding the bridge to parenthood? He pops up saying, "You may not pass until you have answered my riddle!" — Srap Tasmaner

Of course not. You seem to think I'm an idiot. I'm not telling people that they shouldn't reproduce because some random amateur philosopher on a forum says they shouldn't, I'm asking you to actually acknowledge a counter-argument. Which you won't. If we are discussing philosophy we should be dealing in arguments and reasons - not sentiments and semi-fallacies about instinct.

"But the child might immediately fall into a pit of lava!" cries the troll, as people stream past him.

"What lava pit? There's no lava pit around here." someone calls as they pass by. "Why would I give birth in a lava pit?" asks someone else.

"Well," says the troll, "Life is kind of like a pit of lava."

The crowd is unconvinced. "No it isn't." They keep crossing 'his' bridge.

"But it might be!" responds the troll, sensing an opening. "You don't know for sure that it isn't."

"If life were kind of like a lava pit, I would have kind of caught fire and kind of burned to death years ago," says someone, and gives the troll a little shove so he topples back under the bridge.

It's a bit like the argument from error: because someone, sometime, in some specific circumstances, was 'deceived by their senses', everyone, always, and in all circumstances, must accept the possibility that they are, at that moment, in those circumstances, being deceived by their senses. — Srap Tasmaner

This is verging on disgusting - and you are yourself committing a fallacy: just because most people don't suffer enough to not want to live, to have not acted the same as the person who gave them life, does not mean that we shouldn't pay attention to this contingency. Just because people are ignorant of other's suffering doesn't mean that suffering on a level that would make someone not want to exist doesn't matter.

All I would argue is that reasons should always be considered when procreating, and that people do consider reasons for procreating more than you think. Furthermore, I've given it a think, and your claim that people just procreate out of instinct is more than a little condescending.

No one can guarantee anything. I claim it is perfectly reasonable to assume, without argument, that people want to live. And I claim that if you reflect upon humanity, then you do also have a reason in support of the premise. And if you think about it a little more, the fact that everyone seems to assume this about everyone else is only more reason to count on it. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't assume this of everyone, and I myself do not possess this intuition that everyone, including myself, ought to want to live - regardless of how many do and make this assumption. Maybe I'm defective; but I know that if one suffers enough, one will end their life or wish that they had never existed. Most people are just lucky that they don't suffer enough.

I'm not directly addressing the arguments for AN here. There's always two or three places to do that, if you'd like. I do think it's reasonable to discuss why I don't think I have to address them. — Srap Tasmaner

You made an argument in favor of an ethical theory, and didn't acknowledge my counter-argument. Why don't you have to address it? Did you even read my whole post?

You genuinely seem to be ignorant of all of the good anti-natalist arguments.

For instance, no great harm is at stake if one does not procreate; no one will be brought into the world that will potentially not want to live or suffer immensely. But if we procreate, we run the risk of bringing someone into the world who might wish that they had never existed but is unwilling to kill themselves because suicide is an unpleasant solution.

Thus, even if you might bring into the world someone who would have acted the same way doesn't mean you aren't at great risk of causing a lot of suffering or producing a person who regrets being born and that wouldn't have acted the same way. There is no negative outcome if you don't procreate, but many possible negative outcomes if you do.

Unless you consider not procreating immoral. Then you have the happy cows argument to contend with.

Ah, no, not really. I'm saying people behaving in this way do not experience themselves as needing a reason to do so, do not experience the need for decision at all. — Srap Tasmaner

That isn't an argument for anything. You are just explaining people's lack of thought given to whether or not they should procreate/save lives.

On the one hand, I'm claiming that there is a way to construe our behavior as reasonable -- this is the claim that the person affected by our actions would want us to behave that way, because they have the same instinct we do. — Srap Tasmaner

But that doesn't make saving someone/procreating right; they might suffer intensely but still want to live, for instance. I think you underestimate this portion of the populace. And a person who procreates or saves a life cannot guarantee that the person given life will share their value system - what if they are a Schopenhauer? What if they don't have that instinct for self-preservation you seem to predicate to everyone? And what if there is no way of knowing if they will have that instinct, as is probably the case?

On the other hand, why? Why should it need justification? I claim that this is an assumption of the moral theorist, despite the evidence that most people do not believe these actions require justification. — Srap Tasmaner

Then we aren't discussing ethics, because reason is central to any ethical theory - or it sucks.

Sorry for the edits.

I never said so. I was implying that all the ways of reaching the antinatalist conclusion come with ridiculous side effects, and the best way to argue against it is to highlight said ridiculous side effects. — khaled

I sincerely doubt anyone starts with the premise that "everything is wrong". And you cited it as a premise leading to the anti-natalist conclusion, not a side effect of it. So what I said remains valid: typical anti-natalist reasoning doesn't have ridiculous side effects like "charity is wrong".