this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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The only way to experience suffering is to be alive. The only way to be born is without consent
So? The only way to contribute to community is to be alive. The only way to feel joy is to be alive.
Consent doesn't make sense for a nonexistant being.
Is the joy worth the pain? What if they don't want to contribute to a community? Can you guarantee the joy will outweigh the pain? What gives you the right to will another being into existence?
If the being will become conscious and self aware, why doesn't their consent matter?
Is the pain justifying withholding joy?
Humans are a social species. That's like asking: "What if it doesn't want to drink?"
Since when are we modeling everything we do on guaranteed knowledge?
Rights aren't given. They're negotiated. I negotiate the right with the person that conceives the child with me.
Consent doesn't matter for hypothetical futures.
I don't believe you won this. I'm not siding with the person you're discussing this topic with, but they made better moral arguments.
Your supposition that consent can morally come from two seperate human beings, despite the potential condemnation of the new human, is inherently flawed. The same logic could be used to excuse a huge variety of cruelties. Giving someone something (even life itself), does not inherently grant the donors agency over that life.
For example, if a terrible disease that brings pain and very early death is genetically passed on by one person that decides knowingly to have a child, and the child is born with that disease, one could easily make the argument that it was immoral for that individual to have a child, instead of adopting.
Not what I said.
... I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You yourself said they are not yet existent, so really is joy being "withheld"? That doesn't work in your framework, I think.
Just because a human exists does not mean they fall neatly into a category where they innately love "contributing to a community". We're not apes, well most of us :p
You only mentioned the rights of the parents (in a strangely cold and transactional way btw lol). What of the child's rights? They must negotiate with you for them after their nonconsensual birth?
It's not hypothetical--a child is born. They live and experience. You're in a paradoxical state where consent doesn't matter because the kid doesn't exist, yet they necessarily must exist to experience the joy you mention
I'm simply meeting your non-sensical argument where it's at. How is there a ranking of "goodness" at all, be it "bad, because suffering", or "good, because joy" for the presupposition of existence? That's like demanding a serious answer for: "how many angels can dance on the tip of a needle?"
You asked who gave me as the parent the right. In what way is it transactional? Where is transaction happening? Why is it cold? Who "gives" any rights from your point of view? God?
What are you talking about?
You're claiming by conceiving a child, you're violating its' consent. At that point, nothing exists, yet. It's only a being whose consent can be violated in the hypothetical future.
That only happens, because the whole anti-natalist reasons are paradoxical from the start.
The question was "is the joy worth the pain?" That's a fairly simple question -- not nonsense. Is there a point at which suffering outweighs joy? Are you to make that determination for a "hypothetical" person? The question is perhaps abstract and difficult to answer, but it's perfectly valid.
This is the transactional portion. I meant no ad hominem, it just sounds funny to me to put it this way. My point is that the child at no point enters into the question of consent. You're saying there is no violation of consent because the person doesn't exist yet, but what about when they do? I.e. when they are born? Did they consent to that? Does it matter to you?
Other humans. The only way to have a "right" is for the people around you to agree that you have them. Perhaps it's more complicated than that if you want to get extra philosophical, because I do believe that all conscious beings deserve the least amount of suffering possible purely by virtue of them being aware -- be they birds, pigs, cows, whatever. I think maybe that's more morality than "rights," but I'm not sure how clear the distinction is between them.
This isn't what I am claiming. I am claiming that birth is a violation of consent. Conception is meaningless to me unless it comes to fruition and bears a conscious being.
Can you describe the paradox? I found a paradox using your own words. If they were in jest or you were "meeting [my] non-sensical argument where it’s at" then please help me understand better.
I say that it's actually impossible to answer, except in the most extreme cases.
That is because the question was about rights, not consent. The child can't consent, because existence is a presupposition to consent. That's why that anti-natalist gotcha doesn't make sense. It doesn't follow the rules of formal logic. It's like a paradox, but formulated as a question.
In what way is that different to negotiation?
As I don't really give much of a crap about the whole concept of rights, I'd say: forget about the distinction.
But birth is a natural result of conception.
As I said above: Existence is a presupposition to consent. The premise violates formal logic.
It's certainly impossible to answer in a single broad stroke for everyone, but that doesn't mean it's not useful or relevant to think about.
If that's so, then we're talking past one another. My point is that in my ethical framework, having a child is wrong. They are incapable of consenting as you point out, which is part of why I view it as wrong.
Why? The child surely exists before, during, and after its birth. Can't it be that the unborn human is incapable of consent rather than creating a paradox? I understand the chicken-and-egg problem you are describing, but I think it's incomplete. As a fully functioning human being now, if I look back at my birth, did I consent? Did I exist yet? I think I can say simply, "No, I did not consent to being born." Whether you ascribe a negative, positive, or neutral value to this is up to you. In my opinion, it's immoral.
It isn't. I don't think we disagree on this
Yes, however isn't this logic used to argue against abortion? I'd argue that a person becomes a full "person" at birth, which is perhaps arbitrary, but we have to define that point somewhere. Regardless of when we say a person "exists", they still cannot consent regardless.
That all said, is anti-natalism completely correct for everyone? I don't know. I'm sure our species going extinct would create lots of suffering for the dwindling population. Maybe on average, humans do not regret their existence. Does that mean it's moral to make more conscious beings who are capable of feeling that regret?
Chaos theory will very soon screw you in that endeavour. You generally can't make spredictions like that on a single life, since you'd have to perfectly simulate that life beforehand. I think that means it's a very useless question.
someone (idk if it was you, too lazy to look it up) asked "who [gave] someone the right". I said that rights aren't given.
... the principle of ontology, I'm guessing? There isn't a something to give consent, ergo it can't give consent.
These binary cathegories of existence break down at the edges anyways. At some point it's mainly a process, at a later point, it's an entity. Ontology's a bitch like that.
Consent doesn't work like that. It can only be revoked at the moment. If something happens to you without your consent and you didn't know at the time, the best you can do is realize later that you didn't give consent. Something coming into existence can't give consent, since i, needs to exist, in order to be capable of consenting.
What do you mean "you didn't consent"? Would you have revoked consent, given the chance now, or are you lamenting that you couldn't give consent before existing?
Look at it in a more abstract manner. First, there are entities A and B which start a process P. This process results in entity C. Entity C would have to give consent to P, before it is an entity. But only entities can give consent. If starting P breaks consent, prematurely ending it sure as shit does (plz note, that I'm pro-choice; demanding consent of a non-entity is stupid).
Remember that not everyone is a strict utilitarian.
I think that you have a well-reasoned and valid view. It's not that I regret my birth, but that I didn't consent to being a living, conscious thing -- the consent portion of which you can reasonably view as an impossibility.
Suffering is a necessity of living, and therefore bringing a person into the world means they will suffer. You're right that I generally take a utilitarian view of things, upon reflection. Though, taking it to its most extreme conclusion, I could never be asked to choose between saving 5 million people if it meant killing 4,999,999. Such thought experiments leave me confounded.
Maybe it's the case we're faced with infinite impossible choices because the universe doesn't care and tends towards entropy. There is likely no perfect answer. All I can do as a person is try to beget as little pain into world as possible, but I recognize that my view isn't without flaw or applicable to everyone everywhere all the time.
This is also why I don't simply despise people who have children, like my own parents.
I appreciate you taking the time to explore this with me! Genuinely much food for thought.
What if you bring a child into the world that's born with a major, incurable defect?
Life is not always full of joy, in fact, for many it's devoid of it. I think really good points are being made here against children.
I don't believe it's necessarily immoral to have kids, but I DO think it's a serious grey area. It's emphatically not the positive action society makes it out to be.
What's your point? That disabled people's lives aren't worth anything? 🤨
ummm, source? O.o
Also: live can be better, you know. Just because life sucks for some today, doesn't mean it can't improve in the future. That's simply a defeatist stance.
I've yet to see one, tbh.
I think, the question alone shows a misunderstanding of existence: not everything can be cathegorized into "good" and "bad".
I really appreciate this point of view. I don't strongly find myself on either side of the isle here, but I think you are making stronger points than those supporting the mainstream opinion that procreation is essential and important.
The argument against you seems to be "but there have been worse times to have kids, and people still had them." That is emphatically not a good argument.
I think I have a fairly cynical view that reproduction is primarily a selfish act based solely on our biological drive to continue our species. I've pondered for a long time, and I fail to see a more logical conclusion than that.
Life is tough and there are no guarantees. Rolling the dice by having a kid seems like a messed up thing to do imo.
That said, I would adopt a child or children. That's a better way to ensure you are putting kindness and hope into the world where it's needed, rather than creating another vessel for pain from whole cloth.