Having kids is immoral

[Nernico]

I've read David Benator's book "Better never to have been born: the harm of coming into existence" and no one has ever refuted his key arguments to my satisfaction. I am going to explain the main thrust of his arguments to you and then invite you to share your reactions to it.

His argument is simple but, to my mind, devastatingly persuasive. He states that if you are born you experience both good (positive mental states) and bad (negative mental states) during the course of your life. If, however, one is never born then one won't experience any bad (pain, anxiety, existential angst etc). This is a good thing obviously. Of course, if one is never born one never experiences any positive mental states either (joy, love, sexual satisfaction etc). However, if there is nobody to experience these positive mental states I challenge any poster here to suggest how this can be a deprivation FOR THE PERSON WHO NEVER CAME INTO EXISTENCE.

So let's look at the following analysis of therelative merits of being born as opposed to the relative merits of not being born:

Scenario A: You are born. You experience both pleasure and pain throughout your life. You die. Pleasure experienced? Yes. Pain experienced? Yes.

What can we say about this? We can say that being born was partly a good thing for the individual due to the pleasure experienced in his/her life (+1) and we can say that being born was also partly negative for that person because of the pain they experienced (-1) during the course of their life. So we have a (+1) and a (-1) for being born.

Now let's look at scenario B: You are not born. You never come into existence. End of story. Pleasure experienced? No. Pain experienced? No.

What can we possibly say about or on behalf of this non-existent person? Well, we can say that he/she never experienced (or will experience) any positive mental states. That's surely a bad thing, right? WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Existence precedes essence. If there is no person to experience any deprivation of positive mental states how can we possibly say that a'non-person' has been deprived or robbed in any way by not having been brought into existence? I don't think we can.

As a result of this it would be wholly inaccurate to describe the non-existence of a person as a negative thing for the non-existent person in terms of not experiencing the good things in life. Sure we can most assuredly state that being a non-existent person is not a positive thing either in terms of not being able to experience positive mental states - an obvious outcome of their not being born. However, this does not give us licence to make the opposite claim either - that somehow not being born causes a harm to the person who was not born as they would miss out on the positive things that life can potentially offer. Clearly then not being born is neither a positive nor negative thing in terms of the inability to experience pleasure. It is clearly neutral.

Now let's look at the pain that a non-existent person avoids by not being born. He never comes into existence so he never experiences any pain. That is a good thing!(+1) But wait, I can hear you forming objections to this even as I type. Surely, you may object, if nobody is born how can the lack of experienced pain be a good thing as there would be nobody to experience the total lack of pain. Well...simply because of the fact that we can legitimately compare the suffering a person experiences in his life with the lack of pain he would have experienced if he had never been born in the first place to experience that pain. We can make that comparison I assure you. We can always say to somebody who was born: "I'm going to make you rue the day that your father ever laid eyes on your mother" shortly before torturing them to death. But we cannot say to a non-existent person (or anything else for that matter): "Suffer, non-existent person, suffer! Experience the deprivation of pleasure and weep for the lost opportunity you had to experience the wonder that life would have had in store for you if you had only been born."

However pleasure and pain are subjective. Some people are happier and other are unhappy. Some people have more positive points than negative in their lives while others have more negatives than positives.
However the purpose of the anti-birth is to avoid damages to people whose lives would have more negatives than positives. Morally speaking, prevent damage or injury to someone is more important than benefit a person. Pontential humans l whose lives would be a happy experience would not be harmed because the state or non-state of inexistence there is no deprivation of happiness and absence from pain and suffering in the lives of people whose lives would be miserable is a good thing because no pain is preferable the presence of the same.
In this sense procreation should be avoided in order not to harm the people whose lives would be a sad experience even if these people were still a minority.

[Ziondino]

Join this:
Church of Euthanasia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Save the planet, Kill yourself!"

[C Brown]

Its the experience people want, they are standing in line to come here.

[taylor]

Why is preventing potential pain greater than happiness?
Why do you frame it as our goal is to avoid damages, rather than to maximize positives?

If you were trying to make a case, the environment/overpopulation argument works much better in my opinion than this current one.

[Nernico]

Originally Posted by taylor

Why is preventing potential pain greater than happiness?
Why do you frame it as our goal is to avoid damages, rather than to maximize positives?

If you were trying to make a case, the environment/overpopulation argument works much better in my opinion than this current one.

First theres no need to bring people to existence to their own happiness because theres no deprivation of pleasure in inexistence.
Preventing harm is a MORAL obligation while benefiting someone positively is not.

I am talking about PREVENTING harm before it occurs. If people haven't got the stomach for preventing harm by remaining childless then they should know that at least one more person on this planet will needlessly die because they themselves were injected with a need to perpetuate the suffering by their parents.

If they can live with that knowledge and still go ahead and procreate then my arguments are falling on deaf ears.
Procreation ALWAYS leads to death and many ways of dying are a LOT MORE unpleasant than merely choking to death.

Having children may benefit you, in terms of satisfying some of your needs at a given time in your life but it is selfish to impose life when it creates forseeable harm to another person in the future.

[Nernico]

Originally Posted by C Brown

Its the experience people want, they are standing in line to come here.

Potential children dont want nor desire anything.

[James81]

Positive and negative....pain and pleasure....according to WHOM?

(You said it was subjective, but I ask you this question: how do you know that an experience is positive or negative?)

[taylor]

Originally Posted by Nernico

First theres no need to bring people to existence to their own happiness because theres no deprivation of pleasure in inexistence.

Preventing harm is a MORAL obligation while benefiting someone positively is not.

How do you know this? Why are you defining a moral obligation in such a way? Because I define it exactly the opposite of you, that your obligation is to positively benefit. Preventing harm seems like a very reactive and weak goal from my perspective.

Originally Posted by Nernico

I am talking about PREVENTING harm before it occurs. If people haven't got the stomach for preventing harm by remaining childless then they should know that at least one more person on this planet will needlessly die because they themselves were injected with a need to perpetuate the suffering by their parents.

By this logic it would be better for everyone to just die and not procreate so there would be no additional suffering OR happiness. In fact, if preventing harm is a moral obligation, do you think any sentience on any level should be wiped out to prevent any possibility of further suffering? It'd be better if the whole universe was just dead? Does this really seem like a moral action?

Originally Posted by Nernico

If they can live with that knowledge and still go ahead and procreate then my arguments are falling on deaf ears.
Procreation ALWAYS leads to death and many ways of dying are a LOT MORE unpleasant than merely choking to death.

Having children may benefit you, in terms of satisfying some of your needs at a given time in your life but it is selfish to impose life when it creates forseeable harm to another person in the future.

I think your error again arises in that you are only looking at downsides and managing those downsides to the exclusion of ANY GOODNESS whatsoever.

Again, let's take your moral obligation to the extreme. What if you could have a child and they would live 99.9999% happy lives, but once in the third grade they would get the flu and suffer. You're telling me it would have been better if they were never born over this tiny amount of suffering? Where do you draw the line? Is there a certain % of suffering you think makes any happiness they might experience rendered not worth it?

Basically, I guess my underlying question is, do you believe that being alive and happy is a positive and worthwhile condition? And do you believe it's worth even a small amount of suffering to experience happiness?

[Dimitri]

It's not like you get equal amounts of pain and pleasure throughout your life. Part of the beauty of being alive is being able to steer your life in either direction using free will.

I'm not sure if you believe in afterlife. If there's no afterlife, then you cease to exist and any pain you suffered ceases to exist as well. That's like not being born.

If there's an afterlife, the pain you experienced will no longer matter as much from the after-death perspective. You would be another form of energy and you would realize that, pain or pleasure, you came to Earth to grow and learn and have fun in this physical universe. The pain you experienced on Earth would be temporary, but the growth and the development of your consciousness would continue to exist in the afterlife.

[Nernico]

[QUOTE=taylor;968429]How do you know this? Why are you defining a moral obligation in such a way? Because I define it exactly the opposite of you, that your obligation is to positively benefit. Preventing harm seems like a very reactive and weak goal from my perspective.[/QUOTE/]

Pushing someone out of the way of a falling piano is morally right even if no prior consent can be given (if, for instance, there isn't time). But in this kind of case you are preventing someone from coming to great harm. To procreate – to subject someone to a life – does not prevent them coming to harm. Not being created cannot harm them because they don't exist.

Perhaps it will be objected that if life is an overall benefit then subjecting someone to such a life is not wrong. But there's an interesting asymmetry between preventing someone coming to harm, and benefiting someone. Intuitively, it is far more important to prevent causing and/or allowing harm to befall others than it is to positively benefit others. Benefiting someone without their prior consent requires greater justification than preventing them being harmed. (For instance, if i know you'll really enjoy the experience induced by a certain recreational drug – but i know you'll refuse to take the drug of your own volition – it is not permissible for me to pop it in your tea behind your back.)

Benefiting someone without their consent can probably only be justified when the benefit is considerable. And this could well be because unless we benefit the person, their life will go less well. Someone will miss out.

Note, in the case of non-procreation the non-exister does not ‘miss out’. If we do not procreate the non-existent do not have lives that go less well than they otherwise would.




By this logic it would be better for everyone to just die and not procreate so there would be no additional suffering OR happiness. In fact, if preventing harm is a moral obligation, do you think any sentience on any level should be wiped out to prevent any possibility of further suffering? It'd be better if the whole universe was just dead? Does this really seem like a moral action?


I think your error again arises in that you are only looking at downsides and managing those downsides to the exclusion of ANY GOODNESS whatsoever.

Again, let's take your moral obligation to the extreme. What if you could have a child and they would live 99.9999% happy lives, but once in the third grade they would get the flu and suffer. You're telling me it would have been better if they were never born over this tiny amount of suffering? Where do you draw the line? Is there a certain % of suffering you think makes any happiness they might experience rendered not worth it?

Basically, I guess my underlying question is, do you believe that being alive and happy is a positive and worthwhile condition? And do you believe it's worth even a small amount of suffering to experience happiness?

Bringing some to existence to their OWN happiness isnt a reason to procreate because theres no deprivation of good in inexistence. By procreating you will be just creating needs and desires that didnt exist in first place. Unborn children arent in a less better state than us because they arent being deprived of anything.

Take two universes: Universe A and Universe B. In Universe A there is no sentient life. In Universe B there is only one individual who is suffering enormously. Now, is it better to say objectively which Universe is better? Yes, it is. Universe A is better. This fact transcends the need for there to be a conscious agent to experience this better state. The absence of pain is a ''good'' thing independently of the need for someone or something to experience this. This is why we put dogs down, this is why some people commit suicide. Because not being subject to suffering is an inherently good thing.

Now..take Universe X and Y. In Universe X there is no sentient life whatsoever. In Universe Y there is only one sentient life-form who is just ecstatically happy all the time. Now then...is there an objective way to say which universe is better than the other? No, there isn't. The absence of pleasure requires an existent sentient being to be a deprivation. Otherwise the concept of deprivation is empty and meaningless. In Universe X there is no deprivation of pleasant mental states so one cannot cite the pleasure experienced in Universe Y as a reason why it is better than Universe X. If Universe Y was REALLY better than Universe X then you would have to explain how this is so.

It would also be useful if you could show if it is ever possible to have a moral obligation to have children based purely on the interests of the children you are considering bringing into the world. Quite clearly it is possible to have a moral obligation NOT to have children in certain cases. What about in the other direction? Remember, we're talking about the interests of the child who may or may not have been born here, not the people who may benefit as a result of the child's birth.

These thought experiments reveal a profound assymetry between existence and non-existence . You can talk about learnt hormonal reactions as much as you like but those learnt hormonal reactions wouldn't have been learnt in a universe devoid of my existence and that would have been a ''good thing'' independent of my need to experience the lack of these learnt hormonal reactions. The holiday I am looking forward to this summer, however, needs to have somebody to experience the pleasure of this holiday because the lack of a conscious agent when discussing pleasure as an objective ''good'' is absurd.

[Nernico]

Originally Posted by Dimitri

It's not like you get equal amounts of pain and pleasure throughout your life. Part of the beauty of being alive is being able to steer your life in either direction using free will.

I'm not sure if you believe in afterlife. If there's no afterlife, then you cease to exist and any pain you suffered ceases to exist as well. That's like not being born.

If there's an afterlife, the pain you experienced will no longer matter as much from the after-death perspective. You would be another form of energy and you would realize that, pain or pleasure, you came to Earth to grow and learn and have fun in this physical universe. The pain you experienced on Earth would be temporary, but the growth and the development of your consciousness would continue to exist in the afterlife.

I dont belive in afterlife.

Even if benefits outweigh burdens within a life, there's no escaping the fact we die. Most agree that our own deaths harm us greatly. They end our lives – lives that we have become invested in, that we'd very much like to continue. These sorts of considerations make it uncomfortably plausible that it may be better never to have lived at all, than to have lived and died.
If Death erases all our pain and joy its absolutely pointless to bring someone to life if this person will back to inexistence anyway.

[Nernico]

Originally Posted by James81

Positive and negative....pain and pleasure....according to WHOM?

(You said it was subjective, but I ask you this question: how do you know that an experience is positive or negative?)

The view that extreme suffering is experienced by some people in the world and that some of these people regard it as a bad thing IS an objective and empirical fact.
Procreation should be avoided to not harm people who wouldnt like to suffer.

[James81]

Originally Posted by Nernico

The view that extreme suffering is experienced by some people in the world and that some of these people regard it as a bad thing IS an objective and empirical fact.
Procreation should be avoided to not harm people who wouldnt like to suffer.

You didn't answer my question.

How can you know that an experience is positive or negative? And, who decides what is an objective positive experience and what is an objective negative experience?

[taylor]

This is a good example of why purely intellectual philosophy can be harmful if swallowed, especially if it gets involved in human action and collective schemes. Of course, it's valid within your defined assumptions, but why define your assumptions that way? No concrete underlying reason. Wrong assumptions and you can end up with philosophical systems that claim we should castrate all of nature.

If you follow just the heart, you can avoid missing the forest for the trees like in this case, but then you can make errors in empiricism of specifics.

Ideally you have heart leading and head keeping you honest to create your philosophy.

I am also curious of your answer to James81.

[craftyjake]

A lot of overanalyzing going on here. Let me play devil's advocate: if this life experience wasn't available because we were never born, these questions and opinions could also never be raised. In addition, who's to say someone can't have significantly more positive life emotions than negative ones?

[James81]

Originally Posted by craftyjake

A lot of overanalyzing going on here. Let me play devil's advocate: if this life experience wasn't available because we were never born, these questions and opinions could also never be raised. In addition, who's to say someone can't have significantly more positive life emotions than negative ones?

Why do you keep avoiding my question?

Who ultimately decides what a positive or negative experience is?

[Nernico]

Originally Posted by taylor

This is a good example of why purely intellectual philosophy can be harmful if swallowed, especially if it gets involved in human action and collective schemes. Of course, it's valid within your defined assumptions, but why define your assumptions that way? No concrete underlying reason. Wrong assumptions and you can end up with philosophical systems that claim we should castrate all of nature.

If you follow just the heart, you can avoid missing the forest for the trees like in this case, but then you can make errors in empiricism of specifics.

Ideally you have heart leading and head keeping you honest to create your philosophy.

I am also curious of your answer to James81.

The objective of antinatalism is minimize suffer, what bad consequences human extinction would cause?

[elucidate]

Originally Posted by James81

Why do you keep avoiding my question?

Who ultimately decides what a positive or negative experience is?

Craftyjake didn't avoid your questions...nernico did.

[taylor]

Originally Posted by Nernico

The objective of antinatalism is minimize suffer, what bad consequences human extinction would cause?

I am possessed of the radical notion that life is a good thing. Call me crazy.

[Nernico]

Originally Posted by taylor

I am possessed of the radical notion that life is a good thing. Call me crazy.

Life is a good thing for whom? For you? Some people happiness cancel all suffer that other people have in their lives? For you life can be an amazing experience but for many others is a terrible agony and they prefer they were never born. You are selfish and delluded.

Theres logic in assymetry and i showed you, if people were never born they wouldnt be DEPRIVED of anything so existence isnt a benefit for existent people while potential suffering people wouldnt be harmed by being brought to existence. So we have a (+1) and a (-1) for being born and we have (neutral) and +1 for not being born. I'm not a math whizz but you should now be able to clearly see why you should never have any children.

[taylor]

Originally Posted by Nernico

Life is a good thing for whom? For you? Some people happiness cancel all suffer that other people have in their lives? For you life can be an amazing experience but for many others is a terrible agony and they prefer they were never born. You are selfish and delluded.

Theres a logic in assymetry and i showed you, if people were never born they wouldnt be DEPRIVED of anything so existence isnt a benefit for existent people while potential suffering people wouldnt be harmed by being brought to existence. So we have a (+1) and a (-1) for being born and we have (neutral) and +1 for not being born. I'm not a math whizz but you should now be able to clearly see why you should never have any children.

It's all logical based upon your underlying assumptions. However, I don't buy into those assumptions. You don't value life itself. You keep resorting to defining your values in negative reaction to suffering rather than defining them positively to stand on their own.

[Nernico]

Originally Posted by taylor

It's all logical based upon your underlying assumptions. However, I don't buy into those assumptions. You don't value life itself. You keep resorting to defining your values in negative reaction to suffering rather than defining them positively to stand on their own.

Life serves no function. It is just chemistry out of control. How exactly does the universe benefit from our presence here?

In your opinion agonizing suffer is preferable to non-existence?

It seems you have a problem with morals. You are missing my point that our moral obligation to furnish other people's life with happiness (assuming of course we even have such an obligation) is in no way, shape or form comparable to or capable of over-weighing our moral obligation to avoid causing other people unnecessary harm. Consider, for instance, the example of a pilot flying over an urban area and dropping gold bullion from the helicopter onto the streets below. Although many, perhaps even the majority of people, underneath the helicopter would benefit from such a reckless act of generosity by the pilot, this benefit would be more than swallowed up and negated by even the single incidence of someone being maimed or killed as a result of the pilot's actions.

You talk about consistency but if you agree with me that the pilot has behaved irresponsibly then you also need to be consistent and accept that exposing some people to harm by bringing them into the world with the intention that they will benefit as a result of this is, at best misguided, and, at worst, downright immoral.

Recognising that a potential person's happiness shouldn't enter the equation when judging whether to procreate or not is not pessimistic at all but rather recognising the value of a safeguard informed by the notion that:

a) the absence of benefit is not a deprivation for the non-existent; and

b) our moral obligation to prevent unnecessary suffering trumps any moral obligation (?) to engage in behaviour that potentially could be regarded as bestowing benefit upon someone.

[taylor]

Originally Posted by Nernico

Agonizing suffer is preferable to non-existence?

It seems you have a problem with morals. You are missing my point that our moral obligation to furnish other people's life with happiness (assuming of course we even have such an obligation) is in no way, shape or form comparable to or capable of over-weighing our moral obligation to avoid causing other people unnecessary harm. Consider, for instance, the example of a pilot flying over an urban area and dropping gold bullion from the helicopter onto the streets below. Although many, perhaps even the majority of people, underneath the helicopter would benefit from such a reckless act of generosity by the pilot, this benefit would be more than swallowed up and negated by even the single incidence of someone being maimed or killed as a result of the pilot's actions.

You talk about consistency but if you agree with me that the pilot has behaved irresponsibly then you also need to be consistent and accept that exposing some people to harm by bringing them into the world with the intention that they will benefit as a result of this is, at best misguided, and, at worst, downright immoral.

Recognising that a potential person's happiness shouldn't enter the equation when judging whether to procreate or not is not pessimistic at all but rather recognising the value of a safeguard informed by the notion that:

a) the absence of benefit is not a deprivation for the non-existent; and

b) our moral obligation to prevent unnecessary suffering trumps any moral obligation (?) to engage in behaviour that potentially could be regarded as bestowing benefit upon someone.

I disagree with b)

The example of the pilot. Of course it would be better for no harm to come to anyone, but I agree with the pilots actions in the principle you're referring to, that is risk of some harm is worth it for actualizing a POSITIVE value, in this case the enrichment of those who received gold.

Think of planes, cars, medicine, basically any and all productive human action: it all comes with some collateral damage and risks of suffering to people directly or indirectly. Yet, I would define them as ethically defensible endeavors because they result in POSITIVE value. In your world there'd be no pilots because there's a chance they might harm someone. There'd be no cooks because there's a chance they might contribute to making someone ill. Everyone would just lay down and die quietly, trusting that they are moral because they're not hurting anyone.

I always define values in positive ways.

Ethics to me aren't "do not do this" they are instead "do more of this".
In your world though, you haven't defined anything positive. There's nothing of value, only negative values to avoid.

[Nernico]

Originally Posted by taylor

I disagree with b)

The example of the pilot. Of course it would be better for no harm to come to anyone, but I agree with the pilots actions in the principle you're referring to, that is risk of some harm is worth it for actualizing a POSITIVE value, in this case the enrichment of those who received gold.

Think of planes, cars, medicine, basically any and all productive human action: it all comes with some collateral damage and risks of suffering to people directly or indirectly. Yet, I would define them as ethically defensible endeavors because they result in POSITIVE value. In your world there'd be no pilots because there's a chance they might harm someone. There'd be no cooks because there's a chance they might contribute to making someone ill. Everyone would just lay down and die quietly, trusting that they are moral because they're not hurting anyone.

I always define values in positive ways.

Ethics to me aren't "do not do this" they are instead "do more of this".
In your world though, you haven't defined anything positive. There's nothing of value, only negative values to avoid.

The question is why bringing someone to the world when theres no NEED for this person to exist?
All benefit is valid to existent people.
Benefiting someone could well be because unless we benefit the person, their life will go less well. Someone will miss out. Creating positive for people who EXIST is a good thing but theres no NEED to creating positive to NON-EXISTENT people.

In the case of non-procreation the NON-EXISTENT does not ‘miss out’. If we do not procreate the non-existent do not have lives that go less well than they otherwise would. Theres no need to benefiting positivelly someone who doesnt exist. they dont NEED anything.

When a parent has a child, they are being selfish and not just self-interested. The parent is NEVER having the child for the potential child's sake. There are two ways to look at the selfishness

Reason 1: When you have a child, but know that it will experience suffering.. One can always claim that the parent overlooked or downplayed the suffering of the potential child purely for the sake of the parents interests.. they are violating the principle of avoiding harms for other people.. At least in a negative utilitarian conception of ethics.. they not only violated the principle to not harm someone, the parent has now created a platform in which all other harms will play out (they created existence).. Again, the violation here is creating harm (without any consequences since potential beings do not experience deprivation of "good") and not thinking through the full result of their consequences.. One can also argue, that even in cases of accidental birth (most births), the parent was acting in selfishness by not fully thinking through the consequences of the harm they will be doing by having unprotected sex..

Reason 2: Since there is no child in existence prior to birth (only a potential person)..there is no person prior to birth to be benefited from being brought into existence.. de facto, having a child is only for the happiness, or accidental consequences of the parent, but never for the actual benefit for the child.. You cannot give a present to a gift that did not exist in the first place. The present is always for the parent not for the child.. Also, since the child cannot be consented in an adult version of itself (of course you cannot ask a non-existent adult version of itself it wanted to be born).. then you have violated the idea of consent which is selfish..Generally speaking, we are brought into existence for OTHER PEOPLE's ends.. Even you and me, de facto of being brought up in a society of any sort, must be someone else's "something" (consumer, producer, worker, innovator, etc. etc.). To me, this seems a violation of consent and individual autonomy..

[Acting Like Godot]

Pssst. Here's a suggestion - go kill yourself.

If you adopt this suggestion, your life and all its sufferings will be over.

If you don't, then this proves you don't believe in your own theory.

[Nernico]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Pssst. Here's a suggestion - go kill yourself.

If you adopt this suggestion, your life and all its sufferings will be over.

If you don't, then this proves you don't believe in your own theory.

We who are alive have a strong instinct of survival, we can live our lives normally then disappear but theres no need to bring innocent people to this world. Theres a big difference between STARTING and CONTINUING life.

Why are you getting so agresive? You are a little animal scared of the truth.

Defense mechanism that shifts aggressive impulses to a more acceptable or less threatening target; redirecting emotion to a safer outlet; separation of emotion from its real object and redirection of the intense emotion toward someone or something that is less offensive or threatening in order to avoid dealing directly with what is frightening or threatening.

[taylor]

Originally Posted by Nernico

The question is why bringing someone to the world when theres no NEED for this person to exist?
All benefit is valid to existent people.
Benefiting someone could well be because unless we benefit the person, their life will go less well. Someone will miss out. Creating positive for people who EXIST is a good thing but theres no NEED to creating positive to NON-EXISTENT people.

Again you're defining a value in reaction to a negative. You're only looking at needs, that is a state neediness and lack of something to cure, not positive values to actualize. By your definition, happiness isn't good, only "not suffering" is good. If I take this to its conclusion and go ahead and force your hand to create a positive value out of your position, it would be complete non-existence. The positive value you believe in and are trying to actualize is non-existence.

Originally Posted by Nernico

When a parent has a child, they are being selfish and not just self-interested. The parent is NEVER having the child for the potential child's sake. There are two ways to look at the selfishness

What's wrong with being selfish? Everyone's trying to actualize their own values, whether that's having kids, cleaning up the environment, getting money, or complete non-existence like yourself. As you might say, a non-existent person can't be DEPRIVED of their rights or free will, because they don't exist yet.

[CroMagna]

Originally Posted by taylor

What's wrong with being selfish? Everyone's trying to actualize their own values, whether that's having kids, cleaning up the environment, getting money, or complete non-existence like yourself. As you might say, a non-existent person can't be DEPRIVED of their rights or free will, because they don't exist yet.

There's a difference between being self-interested and being selfish at someone else's expense.

Once the person is born, their free will has been violated by having life imposed on him. This is the non-identity problem, that you can't violate the rights of non-existent people because they don't exist yet. But imagine if you lived in a kingdom where every newborn as kidnapped by a virulent king and tortured to death. Would you then make this type of claim?

I've read part of Better to Have Never Been and I've read Confessions of an Antinatalist by Jim Crawford twice. I started a thread called "Antinatalism" recently. It's an interesting concept.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by Nernico

Life is a good thing for whom? For you? Some people happiness cancel all suffer that other people have in their lives? For you life can be an amazing experience but for many others is a terrible agony and they prefer they were never born. You are selfish and delluded.

Theres logic in assymetry and i showed you, if people were never born they wouldnt be DEPRIVED of anything so existence isnt a benefit for existent people while potential suffering people wouldnt be harmed by being brought to existence. So we have a (+1) and a (-1) for being born and we have (neutral) and +1 for not being born. I'm not a math whizz but you should now be able to clearly see why you should never have any children.

What percentage of people do you think wish they were never born? Who feel that way for more than a relatively short moment or two in their life? I would guess it's very small.

I agree with you about the non-logical nature of the argument that if someone isn't born, he or she will be deprived of something. This is a part of the argument against abortion that I find nonsensical. Even when somebody takes a newborn and hides it and the baby dies, I don't find that sad because the newborn is deprived of something in the future; I find it sad because so many people would love to have that baby.

I don't really understand any of this focus on the immorality of how people don't have children for non-selfish reasons. It doesn't seem to play into the picture much at all. There seems to be a very strong biological component in the drive to have children. However, on an emotional level, people want to have children because they want to have a family.

[Lauxa]

A universe without life would be boring. IMO, boring is worse than immoral.

Why do you see such a difference between starting and continuing life? You say there is strong survival instinct once you are already alive. Well guess what, there is also strong reproductive instinct, so if that's all it takes to define morality then reproduction is moral. What's more, if you are already alive, chances are you will cause some harm through your life, so if avoiding harm is your definition of morality then ending your life would be the moral decision.