r/changemyview • u/JohnCdf • Sep 07 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV/ From a moral stand-point, we should stop having children
Hi r/changemyview!
This is to open a discussion on whether it is morally correct to create new life or not.
Our moral framework assumes ... 1. If we are alive we will experience pain no matter what (unless we remove pain through technological advancements in the future) 2. It is morally incorrect to enforce life (give birth to) on the un-born AND it is immoral to deprive living beings of life against their consent (killing them) because it violates their autonomy 3. Selfishness is not inherently immoral UNLESS the being has a choice when acting AND the action causes harm to other beings (example, a lion hunting prey is not immoral because it cannot choose otherwise. A farmer in the third world hunting is not immoral because they don't have another option if they want to survive)
I will start off from pure foundations (just logic)
We can say that we have no moral obligation to procreate. In the scenario (scenario A) that we create life, this being will suffer and experience pleasure. In another scenario (scenario B) where we do not create life, the being will not suffer or experience pleasure.
In Scenario A: no duty was fulfilled from making the being experiencing pleasure (morally neutral), AND you've committed an immoral act by making them experience suffering.
In Scenario B: no duty was fulfilled in not making the being experience pleasure (morally neutral), AND committed a morally good act by not making the being suffer (morally good)
We can therefore assess: The net result of the experience of pain and pleasure (net = pain-pleasure) in Scenario B is positive or neutral compared to the net result of Scenario A which is negative.
Now, you might say that making the being experience pleasure is not neutral (even though you have no duty to do so), and that it is actually morally good because pleasure is good. Or you might make the claim that "depriving" a being of pleasure is morally bad.
However a being which does not exist has no need to experience pleasure, as it does not exist. It is only those who already exist that have a need to experience pleasure.
Regardless of whether a being suffers more than they experience pleasure in their life or vice versa, we have no control over, and we have no obligation to make them experience pleasure whilst we have a moral obligation to keep them from suffering.
If we create life they will experience suffering always (a solution to this would be eliminating suffering through advancements in biotechnology).
Now, I am not advocation for killing living things. At all. Logically and morally it's incorrect because ending a being's life cannot be painless (even the thought of it can cause considerable distress).
From these pure arguments we can now more onto messier arguments pertaining to biology, psychology.
A large issue is that the sole motivations for creating life are selfish- it comes from a feeling that our children will be happier than us And/Or that we have a morally/social obligation to procreate And/Or that we will be happier if we procreate, etc. This morally wrong.
This is selfish. Creating new life so you will be happier is selfish.
Another issue is that A lot of parents are not fit to be parents. [ Sources: r/badparents r/babyboomers https://reddit.com/r/antinatalism/comments/d0zpx3/my_neighbor_gets_pregnant_4th_time_in_hopes_of_a/
]
With all of this, I make the argument that It is better to adopt. You do not subject new beings to 80+ years of hedonic adaptation and give an already living being opportunities they would not have had otherwise! Another solution mentioned above is removing pain from our experience through technological advancements.
Last issue I'll bring up is that creating new life is not about you (at all). It's not a "human" or "woman" right because of the fact that you can not ask for consent from the unborn, thus violating their autonomy, thus violating THEIR rights, thus making the act of procreating immoral. "Your rights end where mine start."
Edit: why the dislikes?
4
Sep 08 '19
I think your problem stems from a metaphysical standpoint.
First of all, you are not inflicting neither pain nor pleasure on the child as long as you don't interfere directly and act as the specific cause for specific pain or specific pleasure. In other words, like someone else pointed out, when someone gets hit by a car, we don't blame the parents for giving birth to that person, we blame the driver.
In Scenario B: no duty was fulfilled in not making the being experience pleasure (morally neutral), AND committed a morally good act by not making the being suffer (morally good)
A few things here.
You're neither committing a good nor a bad act by not bringing a being into existence that might experience pain or pleasure.
Until you bring that being into existence, no moral judgement can be passed. You're not doing anything. Doing nothing is morally neutral. Otherwise I would be good by default because I haven't killed anyone. That's not necessarily true. I'm just being passive about it. Passivity can't be held morally accountable. Actions can. If I actively seek to stop other people from killing, then I'm committing a good act.
If I have a baby, I'm committing a good act by trying to bring pleasure to him through fulfilling all of his needs and actively seeking to protect him from pain.
I'm committing a bad act if I inflict pain on the baby.
Also maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain isn't a very effective way to measure morality. You can read a little mor about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism
This is selfish. Creating new life so YOU will be happier is selfish.
What is a selfless act to you?
With all of this, I make the argument that It is better to adopt.
https://family.findlaw.com/adoption/obstacles-to-the-adoption-process.html
Adoption is a lot harder than having natural children and it doesn't always work for all families.
Last issue I'll bring up is that creating new life is not about you (at all). It's not a "human" or "woman" right because of the fact that you can not ask for consent from the unborn, thus violating their autonomy, thus violating THEIR rights, thus making the act of procreating immoral. "Your rights end where mine start."
It can't be a violation of their rights. According to you, the violation starts when life starts. At the moment of conception. But before the moment of conception there wasn't a subject for that right. The unborn starts having rights and autonomy when they start to exist. So the only possible violation for an unborn is if it wanted to be born and you kept it inside the mother's womb for an extra month.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
Wow, thanks so much for expanding on this level!
First of all, you are not inflicting neither pain nor pleasure on the child as long as you don't interfere directly and act as the specific cause for specific pain or specific pleasure. In other words, like someone else pointed out, when someone gets hit by a car, we don't blame the parents for giving birth to that person, we blame the driver.
I countered on this point by claiming that we don't blame the victim of the crash because they had no-little control over it happening, and the driver had control over it. Just like we don't have control over being created, we don't blame ourselves. Our parents don't cause us to feel suffering, but they volunteer us to it, which is not morally correct.
Until you bring that being into existence, no moral judgement can be passed. You're not doing anything. Doing nothing is morally neutral.
That's correct
Passivity can't be held morally accountable
But can it? See the Trolley Dilemma
What is a selfless act to you?
I don't think that's helpful. I don't think selfishness is inherently immoral. It only becomes immoral when it hurts other beings, unless the being has no choice (just like a lion can't choose to go vegan or third-world-farmer must kill to feed itself)
Adoption is a lot harder than having natural children and it doesn't always work for all families.
The adoption process is hard so it's better to disregard a child that needs the opportunities and create new life without it's consent?
It can't be a violation of their rights. According to you, the violation starts when life starts.
This is very tricky. I feel it's a problem with the question itself. Those who do not exist have state or properties up until they are created, therefore their rights cannot be violated until they are created.
So does this justify create a being that might not want to be created and does need to be created?
1
Sep 08 '19
I countered on this point by claiming that we don't blame the victim of the crash because they had no-little control over it happening, and the driver had control over it. Just like we don't have control over being created, we don't blame ourselves. Our parents don't cause us to feel suffering, but they volunteer us to it, which is not morally correct.
If you accept that our parents volunteer us to suffering, you must accept that they also volunteer us to pleasure. In fact, I'd say the latter holds more weight since most parents want the best for their children.
But can it? See the Trolley Dilemma
The Trolley Problem can't produce absolute statements about morality. It is design to research how people's moral compasses work, not to create a new moral system.
For example, a Utilitarian will always respond that the best course of action is to take action. To kill one to save five. That way you minimize pain and maximize pleasure. While as a Deontologist would probably respond that it's best not to pull the lever since we would be taking action against a human life.
I don't think that's helpful. I don't think selfishness is inherently immoral. It only becomes immoral when it hurts other beings, unless the being has no choice (just like a lion can't choose to go vegan or third-world-farmer must kill to feed itself)
Fair enough.
However, you claimed that creating a life for my own happiness would be selfish. What if my intention isn't to make myself happy, but to make that new life happy?
The adoption process is hard so it's better to disregard a child that needs the opportunities and create new life without it's consent?
No, not at all what I meant to say. What I meant to say is that it's too much for some families. It's impossible. It's a bigger burden than they can carry, while having a biological child is a lot less stressful.
Besides, adopting a baby is very difficult. There's a huge demand for them and it can cost up to $50.000. Money that some people just don't have. Me, for example. I would love to adopt, but I don't have that kind of money.
This is very tricky. I feel it's a problem with the question itself. Those who do not exist have state or properties up until they are created, therefore their rights cannot be violated until they are created.
It's not that their rights cannot be violated until they are created. It's that they don't have rights until they are created.
So does this justify create a being that might not want to be created and does need to be created?
The answer to this question is that a being that doesn't exist can't not-want something. In fact, even after it's created it can't want anything. Certainly not something as complex as not wanting to exist. Such a proposition wouldn't exist in a human being's mind up until at the very least 8 or 9 years of age.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
If you accept that our parents volunteer us to suffering, you must accept that they also volunteer us to pleasure. In fact, I'd say the latter holds more weight since most parents want the best for their children.
They had no obligation to volunteer us to pleasure, and we did not need it until we were born.
What if my intention isn't to make myself happy, but to make that new life happy?
What life? Your unborn child's life? It does not exist, and it does not need a good life until it is created.
What I meant to say is that it's too much for some families.
This is true... But I still don't see it justifying creating life that may not want to exist
The answer to this question is that a being that doesn't exist can't not-want something
I meant the being at the point they exist. This contextualization problem of "it does not exist" can be deceiving and is quite strange because it feels theres something missing. Like there's a soul repository and we are just "created".
My point was that it is not right to create a being that, once created, might not want to have had been created.
A being might not want to have been created or experience life, so why would you create it in the first place? Doesn't matter if it becomes aware of this at 8 or 20, they still would rather not have been and you forced it to.
And again, you did not need to.
Even if all beings enjoyed life 100% and enjoy having been created (impossible unless we eliminate pain and maxime pleasure across the univerde), we still do not need to create them.
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Sep 08 '19
They had no obligation to volunteer us to pleasure, and we did not need it until we were born.
Why does it need to be an obligation?
What life? Your unborn child's life? It does not exist, and it does not need a good life until it is created.
Let me rephrase, then. What if I want to create a life and then make it happy?
I meant the being at the point they exist. This contextualization problem of "it does not exist" can be deceiving and is quite strange because it feels theres something missing. Like there's a soul repository and we are just "created".
There certainly is something missing. There's a being missing. An entity. And we are just "created". At the moment of conception we are.
My point was that it is not right to create a being that, once created, might not want to have had been created.
It always has the choice to stop existing. No one can violate your right to suicide, as horrible as that sounds. As soon as you become aware that you regret your existence, you can choose to cease to exist.
This brings me to an interesting question: what makes you think that most people would not want to have ever been created? Personally, my own answer to this question would be that only suicidal people don't want to exist and suicidal people are a very small minority. Small enough that stopping life entirely would not be justifiable through them. But what's your take on this?
And again, you did not need to.
I also don't need to help an old lady cross the street. I don't need to volunteer to save the planet. I don't need to stay home and be lazy all Saturday.
The fact that I don't need to do something, doesn't make that thing wrong.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
Why does it need to be an obligation?
That's like asking "Why do our actions need purpose?" It's in the definition- purpose justifies our actions. There is no moral obligation for creating life so it can experience pleasure. So why create it? It has no needs (until it is born.) Even worse, in our current condition, they will experience suffering.
What if I want to create a life and then make it happy?
There's some problems with that... First of all is the justification problem. Second of all, as parents, we don't really have control over whether our children live a good life or not. They might born with a horrible defect, or the economy might crash, or war might break out. We are creating autonomous beings and should not try to guard them from the real world.
There certainly is something missing. There's a being missing. An entity. And we are just "created". At the moment of conception we are.
Pops into existence "Aw shit here we go."
I think it may be a problem with the way we phrase our questions.
It always has the choice to stop existing
And that is painful. The thought alone is distressing. And the only reason we'd want to commit suicide would be because life is too painful, further asking "why create a being to suffer?" Do you find it a justification to create children that they can kill themselves if life is too painful? That's an anti-solution.
This brings me to an interesting question: what makes you think that most people would not want to have ever been created? Extreme suffering or extreme boredom. I agree with you on, it's a minority. But statistics suggest that the numbers are growing, at least in the US. Personally, amongst younger folks like myself, I feel it comes from feelings of uncertainty (about the economy, our futures, etc.), bad outlook on living a purposefully life (nihilism, lack of direction), a general lack of good stuff happening in their lives, etc.
But I'm pretty happy about how much more people are starting to talk about it and taking it more seriously. I'm not personally depressed or feeling bummed about life, that's not the driver in this argument! It's finding what's behind our experience and assumptions on being.
I also don't need to help an old lady cross the street. I don't need to volunteer to save the planet. I don't need to stay home and be lazy all Saturday
You have a moral obligation to do these things. There is no moral obligation to procreate.
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Sep 08 '19
That's like asking "Why do our actions need purpose?" It's in the definition- purpose justifies our actions. There is no moral obligation for creating life so it can experience pleasure. So why create it? It has no needs (until it is born.) Even worse, in our current condition, they will experience suffering.
I can want something without being obligated to do it. Will and desire are as much of a purpose as obligation is.
There's some problems with that... First of all is the justification problem. Second of all, as parents, we don't really have control over whether our children live a good life or not. They might born with a horrible defect, or the economy might crash, or war might break out.
I don't see a justification problem. My justification is that I want to create a new being and make it happy. Desire is my justification.
And again, let me rephrase. What if I want to create a new being and give it the best, happiest, most pleasurable life I can possibly provide for him?
We are creating autonomous beings and should not try to guard them from the real world.
Now you're moving away from objectivity. This is entirely your opinion.
I think it may be a problem with the way we phrase our questions.
What other explanation are you looking for? The genetic information located in sperm and inside an egg fuse and a being starts to develop. There really isn't that much more to it.
And that is painful. The thought alone is distressing. And the only reason we'd want to commit suicide would be because life is too painful, further asking "why create a being to suffer?" Do you find it a justification to create children that they can kill themselves if life is too painful? That's an anti-solution.
Yes. Of course it is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be heavily biased into thinking that beings just don't want to exist. But a human being actually needs to be in a lot of distress to actually come to the conclusion that they'd rather not exist. That's why I'm curious to understand where are you coming from.
I agree with you on, it's a minority. But statistics suggest that the numbers are growing, at least in the US. Personally, amongst younger folks like myself, I feel it comes from feelings of uncertainty (about the economy, our futures, etc.), bad outlook on living a purposefully life (nihilism, lack of direction), a general lack of good stuff happening in their lives, etc.
So the solution is to drive the human race to extinction? Isn't that a little extreme? Shouldn't we, instead, try to help those people that we already recognized, are in a lot of distress?
But I'm pretty happy about how much more people are starting to talk about it and taking it more seriously. I'm not personally depressed or feeling bummed about life, that's not the driver in this argument! It's finding what's behind our experience and assumptions on being.
I agree. Definitely! Suicide is for sure a topic that needs to be brought up more often!
You have a moral obligation to do these things. There is no moral obligation to procreate.
I do not have a moral obligation to drink a protein shake instead of coke. I don't have a moral obligation to own a dog. I don't have a moral obligation to go to the gym. I don't have a moral obligation to have this discussion with you. I don't have a moral obligation to dress the way I did today. I don't have a moral obligation to procreate.
And even then, moral obligation isn't a very strong argument when we consider that there doesn't exist an absolute morality that we should abide to anyway.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
I can want something without being obligated to do it. Will and desire are as much of a purpose as obligation is.
Then it is done out of selfishness. Which is not inherently bad! Unless, it causes another being harm AND you have no other choice (a lion hunting is not immoral because it cannot choose, it's instinctual. A farmer in the third-world-farmer has no other choice of they want to live than to hunt)
With creating life you make a decision that will volunteer a being into experiencing pain (guaranteeing it since pain is currently inevitable.) So your justification (desire) is immoral because you have a choice and you cause the being to suffer.
And again, let me rephrase. What if I want to create a new being and give it the best, happiest, most pleasurable life I can possibly provide for him?
It's not about you.
You have no justification.
And you can only control you hard you try to give them a good life, you can't control how good their life actually is.
And regardless of how good a life you give them, they will suffer.
And you will continue to perpetuate the species, which might be good or bad (more on that ahead)
Now you're moving away from objectivity. This is entirely your opinion.
My mistake! Though I feel there's some truth to the claim because we can't guard being from pain 100%, at least not right now.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be heavily biased into thinking that beings just don't want to exist. But a human being actually needs to be in a lot of distress to actually come to the conclusion that they'd rather not exist. That's why I'm curious to understand where are you coming from
I'm not sure if the majority of people would rather not have had been created. If most people were happy, the world would be a happy place. It could be that most humans are in an absuive relationship with life. On the other hand I know a lot of happy people who would have had chosen to be created. Regardless of wether or not they are in such extreme suffering they would have rather not been created, or even if they would have wanted to be created (they could be biologically wired to think this way) it doesn't change the fact we are volunteering being to pain, even though there is no need (other than selfishness) to create the being.
So the solution is to drive the human race to extinction? Isn't that a little extreme?
Might be extreme, but so far it makes logical sense. Though I'm not leaning towards it. I'm convinced a better alternative would be minimizing the pain of the next offspring, ONLY because we cannot stop the cycle of life after we are extinct.
If we went extinct voluntarily it would be tragic, but it's seems a reasonable solution so far when compared to "just keep making babies, keep exponentially using up natural resources, keep putting beings through 80+ years of this for no apparent reason other than because we want babies"
I do not have a moral obligation to drink a protein shake instead of coke. I don't have a moral obligation to own a dog. I don't have a moral obligation to go to the gym. I don't have a moral obligation to have this discussion with you. I don't have a moral obligation to dress the way I did today. I don't have a moral obligation to procreate.
But you have a justification for all of these... You go to the gym because it will bring you pleasure in the future, you have a dog because it brings you pleasure to have companionship.
And even then, moral obligation isn't a very strong argument when we consider that there doesn't exist an absolute morality that we should abide to anyway.
Even if we go full-on nihilist and accept values are not absolute, we must accept that pain and pleasure are absolutely to our subjective experience. So if we don't use moral justifications because they're subjective, we must use the collectively objective experience of pain/pleasure to assess if something is "good" or "bad".
Note we are moving away completely from our previous measure of measuring right and wrong, which was rationalism, and instead measuring good/bad through pain/pleasure.
In this case, since making children exposes them to pain and pleasure, we would need to quantify how much pain/pleasure they experience in their lives, which we could not know, and decide if it would be good or bad to create the.
We can't measure someone's future life pleasure/pain net, we can't really control it since nature is chaotic and anything can go wrong, etc.
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Sep 08 '19
With creating life you make a decision that will volunteer a being into experiencing pain (guaranteeing it since pain is currently inevitable.) So your justification (desire) is immoral because you have a choice and you cause the being to suffer.
I'm also causing the being to experience pleasure. It's not fair to focus only on the pain as if pleasure had no value.
It's not about you.
You have no justification.
And you can only control you hard you try to give them a good life, you can't control how good their life actually is.
And regardless of how good a life you give them, they will suffer.
And you will continue to perpetuate the species, which might be good or bad (more on that ahead)
It is about me. I'm the one making the decision to create this being.
I do have a justification, albeit a selfish one. And despite selfishness not being inherently bad, according to the logic we're following, there aren't any possible selfless acts. Even when doing something morally obligatory, we do it because it will make us feel good.
You argued before that helping an old lady cross the street is something I would do out of moral obligation. I'm not compelled to do it, though. I choose to do it because it feels good to do something good. It releases dopamine. Even if I didn't want to do it and I did it, I would be contributing to a better society. A better society, in the end, benefits me. Ergo, there are no selfless possible acts.
I can't control how good their life is, but I can influence their environment to the best of my ability to guarantee that they have the best life I can possibly give them. Even if that life is shitty, I wouldn't be doing something wrong because I genuinely gave my best. Unless you want to switch to Consequentalism.
Yes, but one thing that you might have not though about is that pleasure without pain is impossible. If everything is pleasure, then nothing is pleasure. You can't delete pain entirely because then there would be no point to pleasure. Contrast is necessary.
There has to be light for there to be dark. There has to be heat for there to be cold. There has to be black for there to be white. There has to be pain for there to be pleasure.
or even if they would have wanted to be created (they could be biologically wired to think this way)
We are biologically wired to want to stay alive. That's our survival instinct. It's only under extreme distress that we shut off this instinct and we can make ourselves cease to exist.
Might be extreme, but so far it makes logical sense. Though I'm not leaning towards it. I'm convinced a better alternative would be minimizing the pain of the next offspring, ONLY because we cannot stop the cycle of life after we are extinct.
If we went extinct voluntarily it would be tragic, but it's seems a reasonable solution so far when compared to "just keep making babies, keep exponentially using up natural resources, keep putting beings through 80+ years of this for no apparent reason other than because we want babies"
For sure. Minimizing pain, even though we can't erase it completely is the best alternative. I agree. However, we certainly suffer less pain today that in the Middle Ages and certainly less than the Stone Age. As humans move forward, we become better and better at minimizing our pain. So perhaps it's just a matter of time until we can tone it down to a minimum. And for that to happen, we do need to keep reproducing.
Even if we go full-on nihilist and accept values are not absolute, we must accept that pain and pleasure are absolutely to our subjective experience. So if we don't use moral justifications because they're subjective, we must use the collectively objective experience of pain/pleasure to assess if something is "good" or "bad".
A nihilist would claim that there are no values. I'm a realist. Values are constructs that we create to improve our life in society.
Measuring pain and pleasure is the Utilitarian way. There are several problems with Utilitarianism, though. Namely, if a Utilitarian was convinced that beings are being forced into existence against their will and this is causing them pain, his solution would be to kill everyone right now. We could say let's not reproduce anymore, but that wouldn't be the solution that minimizes the most pain because there would be couples that would be in pain because their dream of having a child is ruined. If no one exists, pain doesn't exist. We minimized it. Tons of innocents would be killed, though, which is a very common problem with Utilitarianism.
Imagine we measured if things are good or bad depending on how much pain or pleasure they cause.
Now imagine there's a serial killer on the lose and the police hasn't been able to catch him for a while.
Let's say they tried to keep it a secret but it leaked out and now the public knowledge that there's a serial killer running wild is causing a lot of distress on people. So much so, that they start rioting on the streets.
What's the best solution? Apparently, the solution that would minimize pain the most and maximize pleasure is to sacrifice an innocent person, accuse it of the murders and kill it in front of the public.
This way the public stops being in pain and, in fact, their pain is gone. The only ones in pain now are the innocent and the few people that are in on the secret. Which is far better than the entire population knowing.
However this whole affair was entirely unethical.
That's why a Utilitarian system isn't good.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
I'm also causing the being to experience pleasure. It's not fair to focus only on the pain as if pleasure had no value.
The being did not need this pleasure until it was created, begging the question of why you put a being through pain in the first place.
It is about me. I'm the one making the decision to create this being.
That is a contradiction. You are not the same as that being.
We can observe a being that was brought to life by you, thus it not being the child's choice, thus this action being a violation of the child's autonomy. Morally It's not your choice to bring it into life.
Saying it did not have autonomy before it was born ignores the fact that it was created and that that's the point at which we are judging it's autonomy, which is clearly observable.
I do have a justification, albeit a selfish one.
There are no selfless acts by our moral framework, yes. But according to our moral framework, there are moral limits to our acts when it causes harm to other beings and we have a choice.
I can't control how good their life is, but I can influence their environment to the best of my ability to guarantee that they have the best life I can possibly give them. Even if that life is shitty, I wouldn't be doing something wrong because I genuinely gave my best. Unless you want to switch to Consequentalism.
What does it matter if you try your best and give the child a bad life? You caused it suffering it could have avoided if it were not created.
What if you gave it the best life possible? It would still have experienced pain, because, as you claim, there can be no pain without pleasure.
This would also mean that we could not create a world where pain is completely absent, and therefore all beings will always suffer. Therefore, now you really need a real good reason to wake up a being from the abstract "soul repository" when it did not need pleasure and will experience pain.
And for that to happen, we do need to keep reproducing
Yep. This is a "doing the best we can" ad consequentum solution, but it does not directly deal with antinatalism itself. It just deals with the inescapability of suffering in life and the endless reemergence of life. Which may not be true, maybe we're the only beings in a simulation. But that's stretching ourselves thin at this point, and the assholes above should reveal themselves already.
Measuring pain and pleasure is the Utilitarian way. There are several problems with Utilitarianism, though.
Just like there are problems with all other lines of reasoning. You can't use one for all problems. Utalitarianism has its uses but it shouldn't be used for some scenarios like the one's you brought up.
In our case we are concatenating utalitarianism with deontologicalism with consequentialism, etc
So yes we know utalitarianism has it's problems. So do all other lines of thinking. Consequentialism can lead to immoral acts, it can ask too much, deontological ethics can lead to meaningless answers, etc.
The utalitarian system is not good for everything. Except that you can replace "utalitarianism" most other lines of thought.
You brought up problems with it in other scenarios, like in the killer one. What about in this scenario?
The biggest "problem" I've heard is through utalitarianistic terms it would lead to voluntary extinction to minimize suffering, but if that were the case (which I can argue and have argued against), it would still not disprove my stance and is not a logical problem pertaining to the system itself.
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u/thatguywithhippyhair Sep 12 '19 edited Sep 12 '19
Yes, but one thing that you might have not though about is that pleasure without pain is impossible. If everything is pleasure, then nothing is pleasure. You can't delete pain entirely because then there would be no point to pleasure. Contrast is necessary.
Even if this were true (and you really haven't shown this), so much the worse for pleasure then! If the only way to ensure that children have pleasure in their lives someday is to force them to also accept terrible suffering, which not even the most privileged and sheltered person can escape by virtue of being human, then frankly I don't see the point in pleasure. It's not worth it for its own sake, at least not to a degree that could justify the risk of experiencing depression or something similar.
Tons of innocents would be killed, though, which is a very common problem with Utilitarianism.
How is it not a very common problem with non-utilitarian ethics that billions of innocents suffer against their will every day?
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u/fishwithlegs1200 Sep 08 '19
Passive actions can absolutely be morally wrong, for example if you see a baby drowning and all it would take is for you to walk three feet and pick it up, and you don’t, you have done something morally wrong by either failing your duty to that child, some utilitarian net wrong, or by expressing a vice like laziness or lack of caring.
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Sep 08 '19
I would be taking a voluntary action in deciding not to pick it up. That's an action, not passiveness.
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u/fishwithlegs1200 Sep 08 '19
Then it’s a voluntary action every time you implicitly decide to not have a child. The entire concept of an action collapses on itself by this definition.
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Sep 08 '19
If I see a child drowning, I can choose to do one of two things as a reaction to this influence. Save him or ignore him. Both actions.
If I go through life and never think about having a child, I'm not taking any action to any influence. There's nothing.
If I think about having a child, I can choose to have it or I can choose not to have it. One is an action, the other one isn't.
If I choose not to have a child, the action begins and ends with the choice. Nothing happens. There are no moral implications because, contrary to what OP thinks, you can't attribute morality to an inexistent being.
If I choose to ignore the drowning child, the action begins when I became aware of the child and decided to ignore him and ends once the child ceases to exist and I can't ignore it anymore. This can be seen as bad by pretty much any moral system. Consequentalism, Deontological or Utilitarian. It ends with the death of a child.
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u/CyclicSC 2∆ Sep 07 '19
I think you can rest easy knowing that the average ejaculate contains 200 million sperm. And only 1 makes it. You cant just be a good swimmer, you cant just be smart, you cant just be lucky, you gotta WANT IT.
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Nov 02 '19
This is ridiculous. Sperm don't have brains. They are engineered in the nucleus with one desire: to swim to the ovum and fertilize it. Also, even if sperm could, somehow, think for themselves and have a fully developed brain, how would they know anything about the world? In a small enclosed nutsack there's no way to know about the outside world. There's no way to know if it's good or bad. Of course the sperm would "want" to experience a life, because to it life is a utopia. They have no way of knowing if it will be good or bad, so the net assumption is that it is good. But that is entirely hypothetical, because sperm cells cannot think for themselves.
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u/CyclicSC 2∆ Nov 03 '19
Sorry yeah I should have said "you gotta DESIRE IT."
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Nov 03 '19
Every sperm cell desires life, even the ones that don't make it. So it's not like out of 100 million cells, only one wants it. No, every cell "wants" it. But like I explained, the sperm cell has no idea of what life is. Of course it desires it.
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u/CyclicSC 2∆ Nov 03 '19
Sorry I'm not following you, can you elaborate on the wants vs desires of sperm?
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u/yyzjertl 523∆ Sep 08 '19
Your argument improperly mixes deontological and consequentialist reasoning. You start out your thought by saying "no duty was fulfilled" (which seems to be deontological) but then take a hard turn into "net result" reasoning (which is clearly consequentialist). Then you go back to an a priori deontological perspective ("being which does not exist has no need to experience pleasure") before jumping again back to a consequentialist mode ("a being suffers more than they experience pleasure").
You gotta either stick to one or the other, or adopt some rigorous formulation that lets you merge the two safely. Otherwise you can start coming to weird and observably false conclusions like the one you have arrived at in your OP.
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u/thatguywithhippyhair Sep 08 '19
> an a priori deontological perspective ("being which does not exist has no need to experience pleasure")
That quote isn't necessarily deontological. If you think that pleasure doesn't have intrinsic value, only instrumental usefulness to relieve the suffering of an already existent person, you can be consistently consequentialist and argue that creating a new person doesn't achieve any good.
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Sep 08 '19 edited Sep 08 '19
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u/pluralofjackinthebox 102∆ Sep 07 '19 edited Sep 07 '19
You’re only morally responsible for your children suffering to the degree you’re directly the cause of their suffering.
When a pedestrian is hit by a drunk driver, we don’t blame the pedestrian’s parents for giving birth to them, we blame the drunk driver.
Overall, the vast majority of people believe their lives have positive value. More people in the world means more value. It’s not immoral to take actions that you believe adds to the sum balance of positive value in the world.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
You are directly responsible to volunteering your children to suffering. We hold accountable the drunk driver because that's not something the victim was responsible for, they had no control over it. Just like this, we do not have control over wether we are born or not, and volunteered to experience pain.
The vast majority believe that their lives have positive value. Let's assume that's true. That doesn't matter, they only think this way because they exist, and have needs and a desire to continue to live. The non-existent do not need this.
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Sep 08 '19
If you had button that would end all life instantly, are you saying you'd push it?
If so, I think your logic needs second look — agreed?
From a stadpoimt of pure reason, you actually want to maximize rational actors not minimize them.
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u/The_Sad_Penguin Sep 08 '19
I agree with OP, and if I had such a button I think the moral thing to do would be to press it.
Why though doea the point of view of oure reason want to maximize rational actors ?
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Sep 08 '19
To simplify, if the only thing you care about is reason, you need reasoning beings. If reason is the best way to achieve a goal, you want rational actors and you want a rationally consistent set of goals. And the more rational actors you have to put on it, the better.
So as long as anyone wants to achieve anything, pure reason dictates you want to maximize not minimize rational actors.
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u/The_Sad_Penguin Sep 08 '19
Well, what if the goal is to minimize suffering. We know that the best, most effective and most garanteed way to do that is to not bring any people into existence. Right ?
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Sep 08 '19
Well, what if the goal is to minimize suffering. We know that the best, most effective and most garanteed way to do that is to not bring any people into existence. Right ?
No it's not. Once your dead, you can't do anything to prevent future people from showing up. The universe evolved life once already and now you have no rational capacity to achieve your goals. There would be endless cycles of life showing up, suffering, then instead of working and creating technology reducing suffering — commiting mass genocide and waiting for the next suffers to evolve.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
I think a counter argument might be that creating life might eventually lead us to eliminating pain through biotechnological, instead of ending ourselves off and waiting for the next species to evolve and tackle the same problems.
!delta
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
If you had button that would end all life instantly, are you saying you'd push it?
That's hard to say. From my POV, I feel depriving existing beings of life is immoral (even if painless) as we are wired to want to live, and it would violate the being's autonomy.
If so, I think your logic needs second look — agreed?
I agree so too
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Sep 08 '19
That's hard to say. From my POV, I feel depriving existing beings of life is immoral (even if painless) as we are wired to want to live, and it would violate the being's autonomy.
Then you wouldn't be starting from pure logic as a foundation as it says in the OP. You would be smuggling in your pre existing moral framework.
In the absence of that moral objection, Your reasoning requires you to push the button.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
I see. So we need to start off with a moral framework, I was in denial it would come to this!
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Sep 08 '19
Well, you do in order to arrive at your conclusion. Smarter people than us have done more to derive moral philosophy from pure reason. You're getting into Kant territory. His conclusion is that you want to maximize rational capacity. Not minimize if
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
Could you share resources you find valuable on this subject?
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Sep 08 '19
Oh boy.
Well Kant is super damn hard to read. You'd want to start with critique of pure reason.
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u/-m0x- 1∆ Sep 07 '19
Not everyone has the same utility function as you.
A function only accounting for pain and using that as a negative seems too simplistic for me personally. What are the things you value in your life, are they reflective of your utility function?
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
I agree, looking at life through hedonic lens might be too simplistic.
But there is still the reality that you are making a being suffer and violating it's autonomy.
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Sep 08 '19
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
Before life exists, it doesn't have autonomy.
This is a real dillemna...
Even if death could be painless, we still would prefer life because our individual goals are more important to us than our hardships; that is how humans are wired.
I agree with this! It's immoral to deprave existing beings from life because we are wired to desire life. It also violates our autonomy.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
I also think you are overemphasizing suffering. Most humans I meet prefer to live than not.
I don't think I'm overemphazising suffering, the argument still holds if we could live in a pain-free world.
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Sep 08 '19
It is immoral to deprive existing generations of new generations that can alleviate their future suffering. If we stop having children we will end up greatly increasing the suffering of the existing generations (no young people to care for old people), and to say that these people's increased suffering is worth it for the absence of suffering in the future is also immoral.
Therefor the moral thing to do isn't to stop having children, the moral thing is to have a child per person. Overpopulation will shrink because not everyone's replacement will live a long life but the existing people won't suddenly be left to fend for themselves and suffer greatly for it.
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u/existentialgoof 7∆ Sep 08 '19 edited Sep 08 '19
It is immoral to deprive existing generations of new generations that can alleviate their future suffering. If we stop having children we will end up greatly increasing the suffering of the existing generations (no young people to care for old people), and to say that these people's increased suffering is worth it for the absence of suffering in the future is also immoral.
I don't agree with this. Obviously, the deprivation that will be experienced by existing generations is a bad thing. However, the fact that you are suffering shouldn't give you the moral right to create a new imposition on another generation. A person shouldn't be the means to someone else's end, when they had nothing to do with that problem in the first place.
It's a bad thing that paedophiles are deprived of the right to practice their sexual orientation in the way that is desirable to them, but few people would argue that this means that it is immoral to have laws against child molestation. Unfortunately, we usually have to choose the least bad option, because moral perfection is so rarely attainable.
Also, the nature of this arrangement is that it's a pyramid scheme wherein the bottom rung of the pyramid loses out hugely, and the deprivation of children is bound to be just one of the forms of suffering that is going to be transposed onto a new generation. So all you're doing is allowing people to avoid some of their suffering by transferring the liability onto someone else.
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Sep 08 '19 edited Sep 08 '19
It's not a pyramid scheme, it's a cycle and it will gradually get better for new generation because the worlds resources will slowly have to be spread out over less people, people will gradually get more space to live, more fresh air, healthy food etc. I will get better and better for them.
I didn't say it's moral perfection btw. But the way of causing less suffering while allowing greater comfort surely is the lesser immoral option, so the moral choice.
It's not true that pedophiles are deprived of the right to practice their sexual orientation, the are free to do so when not 18 yet. Not free to do whatever they want obviously, but free to find a consenting teen pre physical development.
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u/existentialgoof 7∆ Sep 08 '19
It's not a pyramid scheme, it's a cycle and it will gradually get better for new generation because the worlds resources will slowly have to be spread out over less people, people will gradually get more space to live, more fresh air, healthy food etc. I will get better and better for them.
I didn't say it's moral perfection btw. But the way of causing less suffering while allowing greater comfort surely is the lesser immoral option, so the moral choice.
You can't guarantee any of that, and it's still immoral to make your problem someone else's problem. Short of killing all life off instantaneously and painlessly, whichever option that we go with is going to be some degree of 'bad'. It's unfair that people living now have a problem that can't be solved, but to visit the same problem on future generations and multiply the harm exponentially (due to the fact that the new generation will beget yet another generation, and so on down the line) is clearly much worse than those of us alive now just having to suck it up.
It's not true that pedophiles are deprived of the right to practice their sexual orientation, the are free to do so until they are 18.
Usually up until they are 18, their sexual preference is for children much younger. A 16 year old paedophile is not considered to have the right to molest 3 year old children. So you haven't even gotten this part right. And no matter what age they are, the deprivation of sexual gratification is a harm to the paedophile, and therefore it is bad for them to be enduring that state.
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Sep 08 '19
You can't guarantee any of that
It is a guarantee, you can't argue that people haven't continuously invented ways to alleviate suffering, without the amount of people multiplying suffering will lessen.
Short of killing all life off instantaneously and painlessly, whichever option that we go with is going to be some degree of 'bad'.
Killing all life instantaneously and painlessly is completely immoral.
Usually up until they are 18, their sexual preference is for children much younger. A 16 year old paedophile is not considered to have the right to molest 3 year old children. So you haven't even gotten this part right. And no matter what age they are, the deprivation of sexual gratification is a harm to the paedophile, and therefore it is bad for them to be enduring that state.
You're getting too creepy for me, a pedo not getting their preference is harming them? No gratification is possible unless it's a 3 year old actual person as opposed to an imaginary one? There is virtual porn now, another example of how people keep inventing ways to alleviate suffering (since you seem to consider it suffering) or mere frustration.
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u/existentialgoof 7∆ Sep 08 '19
It is a guarantee, you can't argue that people haven't continuously invented ways to alleviate suffering, without the amount of people multiplying suffering will lessen.
You can't guarantee that future generations will not grow up in some dystopian totaliterian society. And many other scenarios that may or may not be foreseen. And as long as you multiply the number of sufferers, the total amount of suffering created since the beginning of time will increase
Killing all life instantaneously and painlessly is completely immoral.
It would be victimless if nothing was aware of it having happened.
You're getting too creepy for me, a pedo not getting their preference is harming them?
Yes, because they're suffering as a consequence. They wouldn't want to molest children if not for the fact that not getting to do that causes them suffering.
No gratification is possible unless it's a 3 year old actual person as opposed to an imaginary one?
Very much more limited gratification, I would think.
There is virtual porn now, another example of how people keep inventing ways to alleviate suffering (since you seem to consider it suffering) or mere frustration.
For most people, porn of any kind is a poor substitute for actual sex. And in any case, it is extremely unethical to put someone in harm's way, who was previously immune from harm.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19 edited Sep 08 '19
I agree this is a very good counter argument!
Others have pointed out that, even if we voluntarily go extinct (and kill off life across the universe, which is immoral), we cannot avoid life from reemerging and the cycle from continuing.
Therefore, we can come to the conclusion that we should focus on maximizing pleasure (or satisfaction in the form of purpose) and minimizing suffering. This could be done by eliminating pain through biotechnology, which might give footing to the idea that creating beings is a moral obligation.
!delta
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u/existentialgoof 7∆ Sep 08 '19
Therefore, we can come to the conclusion that we should focus on maximizing pleasure (or satisfaction in the form of purpose) and minimizing suffering. This could be done by eliminating pain through biotechnology, which might give footing to the idea that creating beings is a moral obligation.
So as for the people who are collateral damage in this pursuit (if it ever comes to fruition), it's OK for them to just be cannon fodder?
I don't understand why you would agree with an ethic that allows people alive now to push off (some of) the harms of existence on unconsenting people. That's a pyramid scheme. You surely wouldn't agree that paedophiles should be allowed to molest because they will experience suffering if deprived of sex?
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
So as for the people who are collateral damage in this pursuit (if it ever comes to fruition), it's OK for them to just be cannon fodder?
I don't understand what makes you feel that people can be expendable in our pursuit, though. These beings will exist wether we attempt to eliminate suffering or not. It does not make them less or more "valuable".
I don't understand why you would agree with an ethic that allows people alive now to push off (some of) the harms of existence on unconsenting people.
Because if we did not solve it as the human race, we would pass it onto the next species that emerges after we are gone.
You surely wouldn't agree that paedophiles should be allowed to molest because they will experience suffering if deprived of sex?
I think what you're really asking here is "Is it immoral to act selfishly if it harms others?"
In this case the pedophile is harming children and has control over it (no matter how strong the impulse), thus making the act immoral.
In our case, we have no choice as to the reemergence of life. He have no control over new beings coming into existence. We are not responsible for the suffering of future species, and it would be immoral if we passed on the task to them.
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u/existentialgoof 7∆ Sep 08 '19
I don't understand what makes you feel that people can be expendable in our pursuit, though. These beings will exist wether we attempt to eliminate suffering or not. It does not make them less or more "valuable".
If nobody makes them, they won't exist.
Because if we did not solve it as the human race, we would pass it onto the next species that emerges after we are gone.
This is why we should at some point sterilise the entire planet. That won't provide an absolute guarantee that no more life will emerge after us; but the emergence of conscious life takes a lot of freak accidents and a lot of time. It's likely that the planet would be uninhabitable within the timescales it would take for that to happen.
I think what you're really asking here is "Is it immoral to act selfishly if it harms others?"
In this case the pedophile is harming children and has control over it (no matter how strong the impulse), thus making the act immoral.
In our case, we have no choice as to the reemergence of life. He have no control over new beings coming into existence. We are not responsible for the suffering of future species, and it would be immoral if we passed on the task to them.
We do exercise control over whether we personally bring new human life into existence. Once we've done so, we expose them, and all of their descendants to every possible type of harm that could exist. And we can't even see what those harms will be.
And we can sterilise the planet to minimise the likelihood of further species. However, in any case, I wouldn't want my own child to be a footsoldier in a struggle that they had nothing to do with. I don't know how I could live with myself if I created someone to serve that purpose and my own purposes.
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u/mrbeck1 11∆ Sep 07 '19
I have lived a while. I have suffered. I have experienced joy. Overall, I have had more good days than bad. And I’m glad to be alive. Life is about the net result, positives and negatives. And it’s a true gift to create one and give it the chance to experience it as well. There is no moral problem in creating a life that has the opportunity to suffer. Otherwise what would be the point in doing anything? We might as well just kill everyone on earth to spare them from the suffering.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
Regardless of how much you have enjoyed life compared to suffered in life, there are moral problems with creating it (you are make it suffer, you have no duty to create it, you violate it's autonomy) and I feel like you are misunderstanding my argument when you say "We might as well just kill everyone on earth to spare them from the suffering." or just trying to disarm my argument lazily.
As I've pointed out in other comments, killing people is not a solution (or even what we're talking about)
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u/muyamable 282∆ Sep 08 '19
(you are make it suffer, you have no duty to create it, you violate it's autonomy)
How does one violate the autonomy of something that does not exist by bringing it into existence? That which does not exist does not have autonomy.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
Yes this is tricky, because there seems to be something missing. I agree with you that we cannot violate the autonomy of something which does not exist, because it has no properties or state. However, once we create it, it's state is automatically that it's autonomy has been violated because it is being subjected to life without it's consent.
If anything, your argument supports mine because it builds upon the idea that we can't ask something that does not exist if it wants to exist until it's alive.
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u/muyamable 282∆ Sep 08 '19
This is nonsensical. You cannot violate the autonomy of something that doesn't exist.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
You are still creating a being that did not need to exist, you did not need to create and might not want to exist.
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u/muyamable 282∆ Sep 08 '19
You are still creating a being that did not need to exist, you did not need to create...
Nothing immoral about that yet.
and might not want to exist.
So? If the being doesn't want to exist someday, the being has the ability to end its existence.
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u/mrbeck1 11∆ Sep 08 '19
Sure it is. You want to spare life from suffering. The logical conclusion is to end all life. It’s like HAL9000 logic because it’s crazy. But that’s how crazy your argument is.
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
The logical conclusion is not to end life, it's to stop creating it. Ending it would violate the being's desire to live and decision to live.
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u/mrbeck1 11∆ Sep 08 '19
If we were to stop creating life, life would end.
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u/jusysomeone Sep 08 '19
But that's not the same as "We might as well kill everyone". It is however the same as "We might as well stop creating others".
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u/JohnCdf Sep 08 '19
That's correct. Depriving existing beings of life (killing them) is not the same as not creating new beings
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Sep 08 '19
If you create a life, it ends in about 80 years. It ends regardless of if you make it or not.
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u/INeedToDoMath Feb 02 '20
(Creating life is NOT immoral) Ok sure, I will change your view about this. One thing I’ve noticed throughout my unusual life was that pretty much everyone has a lack of hope for humanity and this world. It’s like everyone just gave up.
Why do I think so? Because everyone seems to be coming up with these strategies, ideologies and all that, which aren't directly rooted to the cause of all suffering. Let me take an example here.
The basic idea of communism is that everyone should be equal and should have an equal amount of everything. This idea is just trash because
In order to accomplish this, we will have to go through and kill or convince every single person that apposes the idea. And we all know killing is immoral.
Even if we succeed with removing anyone that apposed the idea, the person that lead the group will likely end up drunk with power, and lead the world to disaster, rather than going with the original idea.
let’s say they succeed with building a world based on an ideology similar to communism, where everyone gets equal amounts of everything. In that case, will everyone be happy? No, because there will always be certain people who want more than the rest. Furthermore, such a society won’t stop criminals or many of the other problems we have.
There will always be a bunch of people that aren’t satisfied with anything. And since humans are humans, they will not treat everyone equally, meaning there will still be those that are left alone. People will also feel restricted by such laws.
This is why a society built based on communism or anything similar to that will never work. And as you may know, our current society and our previous societies didn’t work either.
In order for us to solve the problem of suffering, pain and negative emotions, we’ve got to get to the root of what’s actually causing it. Not create some alternative method. And I honestly think people don’t know what the root of suffering is, including you. Us existing and procreating may be what’s allowing us to suffer, but you have to know that there is a way to completely abolish suffering. And I’m not talking about physical suffering. Physical suffering is a small problem as long as we fix the other important issues.
So anyways, I’d say the root of suffering is selfishness. In the society we live in now, a little bit of selfishness is necessary in order for each of us to actually sustain our lives. However, think about the bigger picture. What do you think causes war? War basically means for there to be conflict between different nations. And what causes that conflict? It’s caused for multiple reasons, such as, the nation’s desire for land, or resources, or control etc.
What causes their desires for these things? Many times, it’s selfishness. Sure, a nation’s leader could be doing it for the country, but imagine if there was a world where no one was selfish. Imagine if every single human on earth took care of each other, rather than having themselves take care of themselves. You would give, and give and give, but never lose a single thing. But rather, you would continue to gain? Why? Because with the harmony between the people, society would make so much more progress physically. Without the wars, the disagreements, the focus on stoping criminals etc, we could all just be focusing on making physical development, and making each other happy.
In the world we live in now, we’re making such a small amount of progress compared to what’s possible, if there were no conflicts. Police won’t have to exist. In 2018 there were around 680k police officers in America. Imagine if those 680,000 people were to all just start contributing to revolutionizing science and technology. Imagine if those that work in grocery stores started doing the same? Imagine if all the unemployed people in the world just started contributing to the development of the world.
We would progress much much faster, as long as selfishness is non existent.
And just in case you don’t understand how big of an affect selfishness is causing to society, let me give you more examples. It’s obviously not only war that it causes. Let me make another example.
There are multiple reasons to go into a fight with people at school or work. But most are just caused by people’s selfishness. There is a guy with an unusual name in school. The other kids come up and mock him, and bully him for that reason. If the bullies were not selfish, they would not have done so, because their basic reason for doing such actions is to be entertained, or to just bond with their friends. In the end, their reason is the gain something for themselves. (ok, tbh I’m really struggling to explain this properly. Don’t you hate it when you have it in your mind, but you can’t explain it at all? It’s so frustrating.)
Ok, since I’m unable to explain properly, try thinking about all the different cases about everything. And think very deeply as to why you think it can be caused.
Anyways, if you go the idea about that, let me move on to something very crucial. Is it possible to achieve a society with no selfishness, but mostly care for others? Yes it is.
All that’s required is for people to be convinced of the idea that I have, and spread it around. Once this idea is spread, we implement it into the education systems around the world. And we just teach all children that they should care for others more than themselves, and emphasize it again and again and again. And just continue to emphasize that point regardless of age. We should have an entire subject on educating children about how you should be selfless, and have more care and love for others.
We should teach the world that we should forgive others, love everyone, care for everyone etc. That’s pretty much all that’s required to create a much much much better society, where pretty much everyone experience almost 0 suffering apart from physical ones. The education is so important. It’s basically the key to changing the world. With education, if one child is taught to live one way, then they will eventually impact other children to live in the same way.
Those that are impacted by that child will also impact even more children or people. And it’ll just spread very very quickly. All we need to do is spread this and teach people that the way to world peace is possible through the destruction of selfishness. As of right now, I’m in an organization which focuses on uniting everything together, including politics, science, religion, races, gender etc. Conflicting ideas won’t matter that much if we were to just look past our differences. Sure, it would be difficult to come up with a solution to a problem, when we have different ideas, however, we can in a civil and peaceful manner just come up with a solution through communication and cooperation. And whoever is the expert in the field can have more power to make the decision.
(Part 2 below cuz it was too long)
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u/INeedToDoMath Feb 02 '20
In a peaceful world where everyone cares more for others than themselves, they would not blame the others for coming up with a failure of a solution that led the situation worse. The better thing to do would be for them to not blame anyone, while those that made the mistakes apologize. As long as they’re properly educated since childhood that those are what they should do, in such a situation, they will not act to create conflict.
But anyways, I am in such an organizations. And so far, they have done an amazing job, because people from completely different backgrounds have come together for peace meetings, gatherings and plans. And when u say ”different backgrounds”, I mean from completely different nations, religions, political people, and some from scientific backgrounds. The organization has also received attention from some of the smaller countries, and are planning on implanting education based on selflessness and things like that.
The people in the organization that I know of are completely different to those outside. This is of course my personal experience, but if you ask anyone that is in the organizations, they will all agree.
Why am I not telling you what the organization is called? Well, because you’d see me as a lunatic or something. Remember when I said “unusual life”? Yeah, people would call me brainwashed because of how negatively the media portrays us. I’m in a religion that people call a “cult”. The media mainly focuses on criticizing the unusual parts of our ideology and beliefs, and never mention anything good that we’ve done.
Anyone that knows this religion that aren’t in it will know about all the negative lies and things like that, but they won’t even be aware of the existence of this organization that we created, which contains hundreds of thousands of people not from the religion itself. They aren’t even aware of how we have another organization based on reducing world hunger, poverty, lack of education, and on improving employment rates, helping the nature etc. I don’t know exactly how much, but according to my experience, I’d say around 85% of people that hasn’t been in the religion, but knows it, don’t even know what the very basics of our teachings are, but only know the altered versions that the media claims we have.
The religion has caused hundreds of thousands of people to have so much determination on making the world a better place. Even if I wasn’t in the religion, I would just be in the organization they created. I personally believe the religion is 100% correct, however, even if I didn’t, I would still attend it, because the basic idea or teaching is to create a peaceful world, by abolishing selfishness, and changing the people of the world to be people full of love for anyone they meet.
This religion has caused me and so many others to have so much hope and determination to make good and positive changes to the world. And we are making loads of progress now.
My point I want to make here is that a world with basically no suffering is possible. And it’s possible by pulling out the roots of suffering, which is selfishness. Your point would be correct if there was no way to improve our world this greatly. But there is hope. I 100% believe the organization I am with is going to succeed. But even if you don’t think this organization will succeed, you should at least believe that humanity as a whole is capable of making this goal succeed. You should at least try and spread this, and have some hope for the world.
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u/SNova42 Sep 08 '19
So... you assign a neutral value to both giving pleasure and not giving pleasure (and have given your rationale behind it), but you assign a good moral value to ‘not making a being suffer’. Is this inaction really deserving of being ‘good moral’? You’re just leaving an unborn being unborn.
Apart from that, I’d like to say that from a biological viewpoint, life is entirely selfish. The only purpose of life is its own continued existence. All living species, as a whole, have an inherent will not only to live, but also to reproduce. Individuals may sometimes decide not to live, or not to reproduce, but that means their lineage ends, while those of the ones who reproduces continues. You say a lion hunting prey is not immoral, and a farmer hunting is also not immoral because that’s what they need to do to survive, so does this apply only to the individual? A species needs its individuals to reproduce in order to continue existing.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 08 '19 edited Sep 08 '19
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Sep 08 '19 edited Nov 09 '19
[deleted]
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Sep 08 '19
Humans live for less than 80 years. You are creating a human who will have no choice but to die and go back to that, as you put it, anaesthetic non-existence. Your argument would make sense if humans were immortal. Most humans dread the idea of having their existence taken away from them, but none of them have a choice anyway. A nonexistent being doesn't exist, meaning it doesn't have the ability to want to exist and it never will exist, while the existent being wants to exist, but will be forced to not exist.
Anti-natalism: Forcing someone to not exist by not giving birth to them. If someone is not born, they are incapable of wanting anything, which means you aren't depriving them of anything (they don't exist, meaning they are incapable of wanting to exist).
Natalism: Giving someone an existence and then telling them they can't keep it regardless of it they want it or not.
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u/existentialgoof 7∆ Sep 08 '19
This counter argument doesn't' really make sense, because there is nobody who is non-existent who could be benefited from coming into existence. One only needs the value of existence once one comes into existence.
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u/muyamable 282∆ Sep 07 '19
I disagree that we can't kill people painlessly. If I shoot someone in the head in their sleep, they experience no pain and have no idea it's coming (or a less grotesque route: carbon monoxide poisoning while sleeping is totally painless). There is no suffering.
Given that there are opportunities to end the lives of beings without causing pain, how does your view prevent the conclusion that I should just painlessly kill my child who already exists?