That only makes sense if you think that pain is good. Clearly Benatar and others think that pain is bad. — schopenhauer1

And it only makes sense to say that a deprivation of pleasure is not-bad if you don't consider pleasure to be good.

I say, scrap the asymmetry, it's made things more confusing than anything and there's better arguments for antinatalism anyway.

But, his point was that it is not bad if there is no actual person who is deprived of good. That is the counterfactual. — schopenhauer1

If it is not bad if there is no actual person who is deprived of good, then it is not good if there is no actual person who is deprived of bad.

A state of affairs where there is a deprivation of pain is good in either the case where someone actually exists or the case where there is no actual person that the lack of pain is happening to. — schopenhauer1

Benatar actually doesn't say this specifically, he uses counterfactuals to get around the absurd conclusion that the barren, icy wasteland of Pluto is overwhelmingly good because of the lack of pain. Unless of course you are willing to say that a barren, icy wasteland is good simply because there is no pain.

Unfortunately, this also leads to problems as we usually do not leap out of bed for joy when contemplating the lack of pain on Pluto. It's a "good thing" in an impersonal, "if-then" counterfactual sense, not in the actual sense.

However, if we use counterfactuals for the lack of pain, then we are obligated to use counterfactuals for the lack of pleasure. Otherwise it's begging the question.

I firmly believe that delusions of varying degrees are necessary to maintain a psychological equilibrium.

Freud introduced the idea of repression, and although he was wrong on many, many accounts, repression and anxiety are two of the most outstanding contributions he had to the field of psychoanalysis and psychiatry/psychology in general.

Then you have Zapffe, who clearly had influence from Freud, and thought that most people deal with the every day by three psychological methods: Isolation, Attachment, and Distraction. Those who cannot bend their minds to these methods and see through them have a fourth option, Sublimation, in which the individual lives in a general angst or melancholy with sporadic intervals of extreme, passionate work.

Heidegger thought that we were Being-Towards-Death, and that a fundamental structure of the human condition was anxiety, or "angst".

Later, we have Becker who was influenced by Freud, Rank, and others, and developed a proto-theory to Terror Management Theory, in which death is an ever-present threat to our psyche and must be repressed by joining into a life-long, almost cult-like exaltation of hero characters. He further developed his work by theorizing that one of the, if not the, prime reason for human behavior was to elevate and to continue to elevate self-esteem and the feeling of worth, despite inhabiting a body that on average is worth less than a dollar.

So, in summary, we have a human being who is assaulted by external forces outside of his control, forced to "grow up" (which means to hide one's scars) and represses the anxiety of death, loss, and the evil forces external to him by isolating himself from the evil forces, ignoring them and distracting oneself with entertainment (from video games to shopping), or desperately attaching himself to a icon or an idol for comfort and psychological support. All of this occurs in the day-to-day basis, and we become "comfortably uncomfortable" until we die.

So you are essentially saying that it's better to save them from the pains of life. You say it's better not to give birth, but how do you get around the lack of pleasure being a bad thing?

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you.

What are you saying, then?

You cannot take away an opportunity to live, without taking it away from someone. It makes no sense to say it is just 'taken away.' What does that even mean? — The Great Whatever

At the same time, though, if you can't take away the opportunity to live from a potential person, then neither can you save them from future suffering. This was Cabrera's criticism of Benatar's misuse of counterfactuals.

What I meant was that it is unfortunate that pleasure only exists when in couple with suffering. I didn't actually mean that lack of pleasure is an unfortunate thing for an unborn person, as I actually said later on in my post.

You want to eradicate suffering, despite the great cost of doing so. — Sapientia

I do admit that the lack of pleasure is an unfortunate thing. If, for example, we could perfectly forsee how someone's life would turn out, and we saw that they would just experience pleasure all the time with a negligible amount of pain, I would not be opposed to their birth. In fact, if they go on to help other people, I might even urge the parents to have the child.

But that is entirely hypothetical. The ethical responsibility we have is to not bring harm upon another individual. By not giving birth to a person, you are avoiding imposing harm upon the individual. And by not giving birth to them, they are not deprived nor benefited by anything (this is where I disagree with Benatar).

You make it seem as though the suffering that is occurring here on planet Earth has some purpose. The "great cost" of minimizing suffering is a cost that affects nobody but ourselves and our ultimately short-sighted desire for the continuation of the human race (i.e. the continuation of the cosmic drama).

If there's nothing wrong with an empty desert island, then there's nothing wrong with an empty desert cosmos.

I do not contend that there is a duty to not cause positive experiences. Positive experiences are supererogatory, and the lack thereof is simply a by-product of my position.

I contend that there is no duty to bring pleasure into the world.

"Each organism raises its head over a field of corpses, smiles into the sun, and declares life good." - Ernest Becker.

Then apparently being beaten by life did not convince them. Or did they just not get beaten enough...

I am sorry you feel this way about your parents, and I am sorry that it seems that you have had a rougher life than most of us (even though all of us in the end have a rough life).

Moral nihilism =/= moral anti-realism.

Under that logic, those who procreate have not been beaten by life.

It is not your duty to do anything; but it would be nice if you didn't procreate. What that would accomplish is not brining another generation of misery into existence because of whatever whims make you decide to do so. In other words, it's a matter of basic compassion -- if you think that's boring or lame or doesn't make you feel radical or whatever, fine, but there are real consequences to reproducing, and it'd be nice if you didn't. — The Great Whatever

It seems from this that you believe in a kind of moral nihilism or moral sentimentalism. However, holding such a position seems to be mean that you can't actually condemn someone for having a child without being disingenuous or just being an ass in general. Without viewing suffering as something that at least should not be given (as a moral ought), there is no justification for debating this entire subject, and the debate is moot. You can't say that there is no duty to do something, and then turn around and say it'd be nice if nobody procreated, and expect everyone to accept this. For someone could say that it'd be nice if you had children, in which case you would argue against them and presumably bring up arguments related to the duty of not giving harm upon another individual without their consent. Essentially it's a non-starter.

The problem is just that it is insisted that one must feel awful about it, and obsess over it or they're not really getting it. — Wosret

Not at all, although such a position may induce a sense of melancholy.

There is no duty, at least in my view, to prevent suffering when such an action would significantly take away from your own life. There is a duty to not cause suffering, though.

Because you are consistently aware of the precarious nature of the human condition and act responsibly to compensate.

Well of course you can feel happy about your philosophy.

It's more about living a more responsible life though.

Thought this might be relevant to the discussion, regarding how to live as a pessimist/antinatalist/"negative ethicist", from Julio Cabrera:

"The negative human being has a greater familiarity with the terminality of being; he neither conceals it nor embellishes it, he thinks about it very frequently or almost always, and has full conscience about what is pre-reflexive for the majority, that is, all we do is terminal and can be destroyed at any moment. Negative life, in this sense, is melancholic and distanced (but never distracted or relaxed), not much worse than most lives and much better than them in many ways, a life with neither hope nor much intense feelings, neither of deception nor even enthusiasm. And, above all, without the irritating daily pretending that “everything is fine” and that “we are great”, while we sweep our miseries under the carpet. Therefore, it is usually a life without great “crisis” or great “depressions” (by the way, depression is the fatal fate of any affirmative life); negative lives are anguished lives, poetic and anxious, and almost always very active lives."

I don't think psychopathy is necessary to rule, per se. I have a hard time imagining Lincoln being a psychopath, for example. It may be, though, that psychopathy or sociopathy make it easier to operate in the political climate.

Shoot, I forgot, Lincoln was a vampire killer.

Practically speaking that is a bigger issue at the moment than the problems of determinism. — mcdoodle

I agree.

That is why it would require a society-wide change.

A tornado hits your house and destroys it. For a brief amount of time, you probably feel rage at the tornado, until you realize that the tornado had no animosity towards you and that your house was simply in the path of destruction. There is no use blaming a phenomenon for which there is no agent responsible.

A man hits your car out of road rage. For a longer amount of time, you probably feel rage at the man and wish ill tidings to come into his life because of how inconsiderate they are. But perhaps the reason they felt road rage was because they had just lost their job. Or perhaps their dog just died. Or perhaps there is a chemical imbalance in the brain that led to his actions.

Because of your (pre-determined) inability to forgive someone for their (pre-determined) recklessness, you now have to go to court and pay a ton of money for lawyers and charges.

Just because things are pre-determined doesn't mean the trash is going to take itself out. You still have to put in effort to take the trash out. And so when we see how people are not intentionally bad and cannot be fully responsible for their actions, it is worth it to try to change how we respond to their actions, even if this change in response is ultimately pre-determined.

I was kind of thinking around the same way as you regarding punishment. It's not possible to abandon punishment; not only do we, the victims, need closure and a feeling of security but the perpetrator needs to understand that these actions are not acceptable. Just because these actions are pre-determined does not mean that the person himself can just sit back and let his body do all the work.

There is an illusory experience of having control over one's actions and this must be taken into account. Because of this I think a good indicator for a crime that requires punishment, although difficult to measure, is whether or not the criminal feels any guilt. If they already feel guilt, then part of the rehabilitation process is already complete. We just need to make sure that they don't over-ride their guilt and perpetrate the crime again.

Ultimately, like most things in the justice system, the changes that do occur will be gradual and likely slight. We likely will not see the end of the ostracizing of criminals, nor of the aggressive vengeful punishments that follow (the death penalty must go though).

There is ample evidence to support the hypothesis that the repression of death is an unnatural, yet necessary psychological phenomenon.

If you are able to do so and live your life free of death-related angst, fine. Not everyone has that psychological flexibility.

Also, if you adopt the Epicurean stance, then you have to accept that murder does not harm the one who is murdered.

Not when it comes to death.

http://www.newser.com/story/147889/death-rates-spike-on-birthdays.html

pfffttHAHAHAHA — The Great Whatever

That's not something to laugh about. Maybe if your intention was to gloat, sure.

I generally hate birthdays as well.

And I agree that most people in general are in a negative state most of the time. But I disagree with your statement that the majority of people never experience any joy whatsoever in their lives on a day-to-day basis. This just strikes me as an absurd generalization.

Also, many of the negative experiences (like sadness, pathetic, desperation, etc) are often not entirely outside of the person's control. It's easy to say that people have shitty lives when you see how stressed they are. But it is an entirely other thing to claim that this is a structural part of the life of a human being, to be stressed out, to be desperate, to be pathetic and angry. It's what a key point in Buddhist (and other eastern religions and philosophies) point out, is that ignorance, attachment, and aversion (take your pick or add some) cause these negative experiences and if you purge your ignorance, purge your unnecessary attachment to materialistic oddities, and purge your fear of little conflicts, you'll be a far more stable and potentially even happy individual.

I think a significant portion of the human race, perhaps the majority, lives day to day with no joy in their lives to speak of. — The Great Whatever

I would be willing to deny this claim. One must only tell a joke or a funny story to see the brightness of the human spirit flourish.

The joy one feels when they celebrate their birthday or when they fall in love is, arguably, an "unnatural" experience that does not happen on a day-to-day basis. But a good, true laugh can make a shitty day a lot better.

The same goes with hearing your favorite song, or viewing a piece of beauty.

I don't think that that's relevant. It is indeed a threat to the idea of humankind existing indefinitely, but I don't find that at all threatening in a psychological or emotional sense. It doesn't affect me at all in a negative way. I don't expect to live forever, and I don't expect humankind to be here forever, so there's no big disappointment. And it's so - almost inconceivably - distant that it's incredibly far removed from day-to-day life and plans for the future. That things will end doesn't mean that they're not worthwhile. This is the fallacy that I spoke of earlier, and it's the epitome of defeatism. — Sapientia

We can kick the can down the road, sure. Maybe it's not a problem now, but eventually it will be a problem. Essentially by saying entropy/death/decay is not a problem, you are setting aside the issue (procrastinating) just like everyone does when they push aside homework or taxes.

Entropy may or may not be an issue in the current moment, but it is ultimately broad, structural, possibly even metaphysical in nature.

If you and the other fatalists cum antinatalists can describe everything as inevitably leading to a shit pile, I don't see why I can't describe the same things as at least possibly leading to a rose garden--just no promises. — Bitter Crank

Entropy, the acceleration of decay. The rose garden is a second-order establishment, built upon a pile of fertilizer (manure).

I don't know about the other people arguing here and what they think about happiness or contentedness or happy-endings, but in my opinion, the rose-garden, white picket fence, happy spouse and a charming lifestyle exist only in the movies. If they exist in the real world, they last for a short time, and are not guaranteed to everyone (some people have an unfair advantage over others, a "head-start" that actually keeps them ahead while pushing everyone else behind). Every once in a while you'll hear about the self-made man who built himself up from the shreds of poverty, and this is supposed to inspire and motivate people to work hard and achieve their dreams. It's all just a joke, unfortunately. It's a nice little narrative to keep people dreaming, and insofar as you are under the influence of the dream, everything seems alright. The hero that built himself up no doubt tried hard (which should be enough to show how faulty this system is...a person has to work their asses off just to make a living), but also was extraordinarily lucky. For there are tens of millions of people just like him who would kill for that kind of opportunity.

This is the crux of my pessimism: it is not that life is unbearably bad at all times and that at every moment of my life I wish I could die (can't say anything about anyone else here though), but rather that I have, at least from my perspective, taken off the rose-tinted glasses and seen life for what it is: it's an ugly, pointless, harsh, depriving, harmful and disgusting cycle of desire, disappointment, regret, conflict (competition), pain, and death, and the nature of the beast is hidden just in case you limit your attention to the incoming blows that threaten your very existence. It seems as though this evaluation can only occur if you are lucky enough to not have to scruple for crumbs every day of your life. Thus, why philosophers like Schopenhauer who lived a rather posh and privileged lifestyle were given the opportunity to reflect upon the lives of others and themselves.

I liken my pessimism (which leads to my antinatalism) to being a soldier in the front lines of battle, seeing his fellow platoon mates yell as more and more shells explode in front of them. I'm stuck in no-man's-land (just as everyone else is), viewing the pointless carnage, and then I hear the whistle as the captain, safe behind the trenches, sends another wave of men out to die (analogous to birth). You can hear the charade, the trumpet fanfare, the shouts of victory and triumph for the first initial seconds as the men sprint on the field, unaware of the nature of the game, high on adrenaline and ambition. Each man has dreams, each man wants to be a hero, but no man wants to die. But from the collective frenzy of fear and group habit, each man runs out anyway.

Hearing the scream as a bullet barely misses me, I sigh in relief even as I hear the squelch of the bullet hit a man next to me. But it's not me that the bullet hit. It's not me that is suffering. There's no need to worry about life!, just keep running blindly into the minefield! You'll be fine!...

But where to run to? Do we just keep running forward blindly? What's the goal? What's the end-point? There's hardly enough time actually stop running and appreciate some of the aesthetics of life before you have to go back to dodging and running. We are, in Heidegger's words, Beings-Towards-Death.

In the end, as each and every one of us lies dying on the field, never reaching the end, what will come to mind? Surely we have to justify this wreck. Surely there has to be a point to all this conflict. There's got to be a point...right? Those white-picket fences, those cute little puppies, the smell of fresh-cut grass...is that it?! What are we fighting for?!

Perhaps you and others think that this analogy is too dark and repetitive. To this I only have to say that if our lives weren't filled with suffering, we'd have to fill them with an empathetic substitute (entertainment). We enjoy seeing others squirm on television, so long as it is not ourselves that is squirming. And we enjoy drinking the kool-aid when we listen to the few lucky people who somehow managed to not get hit by a bullet during their run of life, because it helps us pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and keep us from questioning the unquestionable, from realizing how each and every one of us is a ticking time bomb, and that all of us have a delicate, precarious disposition to suicide.

This response turned out to be longer than I expected. But I'd like to end by saying that what I experience is a profound feeling of disillusionment and, at times, despair, regarding the hopelessness and pointlessness of the world, and that I have absolutely no desire to bring this upon another person and because of this I wish nobody wished this to be so. Perhaps this is why I enjoy amateur astronomy so much: I can look out into the heavens and know that the beautiful cloud of dust that I am viewing is most likely toxic to life as we know it and will not harbor the same horrors that exist on this planet.

You specifically were talking about heroes, thus I provided my opinion. smh

I would disagree. The entire human race is intoxicated under this hero-cult godhead, the Individual who conquers Death (our greatest fear and enemy), the Individual whose Ego Triumphs over the forces of nature and Evil. They are our Heroes precisely because they inspire us to continue to live instead of crumbling to the fear of death.

There's something about living in a non-ideal world that for some reason some people are so attached to. The tragedy of existence becomes romantic and something to be cherished. Look at the toils and strife person x goes through every day, look at their journey, look at their character and strength!

Is that masochistic?

Are those opposed to corporate power's influence in our democracy opposed to the process that resulted in the veto of this bill? Or does the fact that the preferred result was achieved negate the corrupt process that brought about the result? Or, do you think that the process was not corrupt at all and that corporations play an important role in our democratic process by using their influence to get results? — Hanover

So, just to make sure I'm getting this right, am I opposed to the corporatocratic shenanigans even though they led to a good outcome?

Ahem...well FIRST OF ALL I'd like to say that WE'RE ALL HYPOCRITES at some points in life...

No, in all seriousness I think that corporations should play a certain role in the democratic process. Corporations are owned by citizens, and the citizens who run them should be able to utilize them. There's gotta be a balance.

It's tough to say this but I don't think I would consider this event "corporate bullying". More like "social responsibility". But I suppose it does depend on what side you are on.

Is it necessarily impossible to improve the world at some point in the future, such that the balance of probability for an individual born skews to a good, rather than a poor existence? — Sinderion

I'm not against improving the human condition. I won't deny that smallpox has been eradicated, for example. But neither will I deny that it is a far-fetched idea that we will ever solve the problem of suffering in general, or existential identity/boredom, or the ever-increasing and threatening entropy of the universe which will, if all of physics is to be understood, result in the eventual destruction of these improvements of the human condition.

Are antinatalists here saying that existence necessarily entails suffering (at least in this world)? — Sinderion

A lot of us will contend that existence by structural necessity entails suffering. For example, to be alive means to have frustrated preferences. Sometimes these preferences actually get us emotionally distressed, and are often caused by other people. Simply existing can be ethically problematic, it seems, as people inevitably have different opinions.

Also, do antinatalists here have any arguments for/against implementing political measures to enforce their moral principles? — Sinderion

I've argued elsewhere that above all else, liberty is to be understood as the highest of moral and political goods. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to pat you on the back for having a child, I just know that the state hasn't made it illegal (yet?) to exercise your liberty to have a child. Until then, there is absolutely nothing I am allowed to do that permanently affects you (I am not allowed to sterilize the water, for example)

Also, I'm not dogmatic in my philosophical positions: if someone has a good argument against antinatalism, I'll change my mind.

BC, it is great that your personal experience of life is adequate enough for you to say that you feel as though life is decent. However, I think it would naive to say that there is not a lot of suffering (and yes, I mean suffering, not little whiny bitching about having to fill up your gas tank), and I also think that it would be ignorant and wasteful to say that this reality of suffering is completely irrelevant to the discussion of birth.

Having children is forcing them to experience suffering, whether you like to admit this or not. Having children is a risk-taking act that impacts someone else without their consent.

To all disagreeing, here is an analogy: say there are ten brownie cupcakes to choose from. You are not particularly hungry nor are you craving a cupcake, but let's say neither do you have diabetes and you wouldn't mind having a cupcake. There is a catch, though. One or two of the ten cupcakes are not fully cooked, and will thus food poison you, causing you to experience frequent visits to the bathroom and general discomfort.

Now, is it worth the risk? Is the little bit of enjoyment you derive from the cupcake really worth the risk of getting explosive diarrhea?

Perhaps the stakes aren't high enough. What if now, instead of choosing a cupcake for yourself, you had to choose a cupcake for someone else, say, your spouse, or a friend or relative. What about now? Would you choose a cupcake for them?

This is essentially what is involved in the act of child birth, except the stakes are far higher and the probabilities are skewed so far that there really isn't any way to guarantee that someone isn't going to come out fucked up, or live a fucked up life. It's easy to focus on how great someone's life might be, or how much meaning they may derive during certain aspects of their life, and forget about the drudgery, bullshit, and suffering that pervades the world we live in. It's not fun nor comfortable to look at this picture but it does no good to ignore it either.

Antinatalism is often paired with depression but it seems like this is only the case because those who are unable to see the obviousness of this position are typically the ones who have their heads in the clouds. The depression a person may have has no relevance to the arguments they present; I am not a hopeless depressive, I just make sufficient observations around me that lead me to a position that many would consider to be depressive.

I'm saying that it can be worthwhile to have children because there are things in life that are worthwhile, and I'm further saying that there are, and have been, and probably will be, some cases in which it is worthwhile. — Sapientia

There is a difference between a life worth continuing and a life worth starting. Giving birth to a child that turns out to have a life worth living is still a risk, but results in a lucky draw.

I'd like to bring to the discussion a topic that I encountered the other day while reading a thread by Schop1 over at the old PF.

Forget about the inevitable aches and pains of life. What about the frustrated preferences, the frustrated idealism of every person? We live in a society in which every person has a different idea of how things should go. In the end, nobody gets what they want, nobody lives the life that they actually desired, because they were forced into strange and rigid social institutions and told that this is the way you live your life and that's that. You have to go to school, you have to go to an 8-5 job, you have to go to church, you have to pay taxes, you have to serve in the military (or at least you used to if you were a male of a certain physical strength), you have to put aside your dreams and your preferences and focus on all the various other things that keep this whole society thing falling apart.

From my perspective, existence is synonymous with limitations and deprivations. In the end, can we honestly say: was it worth it?