This is true. I believe existence necessarily entails some degree of suffering (through pain, fear of death, or otherwise), and that the amount amount of joy one experiences will not necessarily "justify" that suffering. I believe that suffering is bad, and that it is immoral to subject beings capable of feeling of suffering to it. This is one of the premises I acknowledge can be attacked.
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Having children seems immoral to me...
- Thread starter braves01
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This is true. I believe existence necessarily entails some degree of suffering (through pain, fear of death, or otherwise), and that the amount amount of joy one experiences will not necessarily "justify" that suffering. I believe that suffering is bad, and that it is immoral to subject beings capable of feeling of suffering to it. This is one of the premises I acknowledge can be attacked.
This is one of my favorite posts of 2013 so far, blame space-esque punctuation notwithstanding.
Devolution
Member
Tell that to the anti-abortion crowd.
The problem is in your premises. You assume that a human life is, on net, negative. This premise guarantees that you'll come to the conclusion that we should not create human life.
Most people would disagree with your premise, which is why this seems odd or ridiculous to most of the people responding.
Honestly, it sounds like he took a university level philosophy class. I took a class on the philosophy of life and death back in undergrad. It was interesting, but at the end of the day we are living creatures, and living creatures consume and procreate.
Whenever you use a resource or occupy a space you are inflicting harm/misery/death on some form of life. Just how things go.
Trent Strong
Banned
Do you want to put mass murderers in prison? Why? you're just applying your subjective ideas of morality to other people who have different ideas about morality. Who's to say mass murder is immoral? How dare you try to put these murderers in prison.
You're a doctor and there is a guy who is hurt badly on your table - you have to conduct surgery quick and you, for some reason, can't use anaesthesia. To save him, you have to inflict suffering on him.
He wants to live, to boot.
I guess I'm not assuming human life is on net negative. But the risk allows the possiblity that it is ultimately negative, and that risk isn't something that would-be parents should be taking on behalf of their children no matter the odds.
Edit: I took a single university level philosophy course a while ago, but I really don't know what the hell I'm talking about. That's why I made this thread.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
i always hear how a child born in America is a million times worse for the world than one born in India or some other country. But they never say that the base multiplier was a "good for the world" rating. Every person born on the world is bad for it.
the only good reason for more people in the world is for more money in capitalism. there is no point of population until we expand to other planets.
Nothing I've said conflicts with this. I want my subjective ideals permeating society, I want what I think is right to be the standard, not what someone else thinks is right. Everything I do is an extension of that.
The premise also comes painted with the depressive viewpoint that existence is a curse, and not the greatest gift in the universe.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Well, in the OP he mentioned that it's still immoral, even with the possibility of net positive, in part due to the lack of consent of an at-the-moment non-existent potential human.
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
If that were the case you would have asked me questions rather than handwaving my position. Genuine interest demonstrates interest, not discounting others and waiting around for a comprehensive solution to fall on your ears.
Why is a suffering sentience worse than non-sentience? I am deeply grateful and amazed by every second of my painful life. It is the great wonder of the entire universe, the most precious and valuable thing in all existence.
Even taking your assumptions as true (and I don't, I think bringing a being into an existence where pain is experienced is different from inflicting it yourself)...
We are the one thing that can recognize chaos and order and effect change. Plus, if the state of our world generates life, as it seems to, then it will ultimately continue to generate life even if we destroy ourselves, including all the pain those beings go through. Yet if we continue on, our ability to effect order on chaos could potentially ease or even eliminate suffering for all creatures which come to be. Without us, the biological machine just goes on, and eventually some other sentient beings may be generated and suffer.
You argue that having children would be like a means to an end, but the generation of more life seems to be beyond our control if we are in the position of being dead. Whether or not we are the ones behind creating the new beings, new beings will be. Therefore our continued existence and guidance of future life could rather be viewed not as an initiation of our own ambition, but as an intervention of what will continue to be whether or not we were part of it. It is also the greatest hope of eliminating the negative aspects of these natural processes.
Why do you have to experience joy in order to justify existing? Is existence at base-level happiness of the same value as not existing at all?
If you break down this portion of most people's utility function, it would look something like this:
+intelligent/conscious existence +happiness/joy/love/etc -pain/suffering
The reason that death is considered a bad thing is that it ends an intelligent, conscious existence, which is generally viewed as a good in and of itself. If you don't agree with that, and also think that suffering outweighs happiness in quantity, then you might not think that a human life is a net positive.
I'm just... not sure why you'd think that way.
on GAF that glass is all empty and shattered to the ground, no tips, for all....
Well if death is the ultimate evil, then all life will ultimately be negative. Except if we take this viewpoint to it's "logical" conclusion, then we'd all be better off if existence was just swallowed up and disappeared, which negates all the possible joys that we may experience in our lives.
Do your best to be happy in your life, if you have children, do your best to give them a chance at a happy life. Existing is about playing the cards we're dealt as best we can, because it's all we have.
there's a difference between deciding having kids isn't right for you and considering having children immoral. one is a perfectly normal lifestyle choice, and one is a gross misunderstanding of life that may be indicitive of deeper psychological issues.
52 posts in and you've got GAF all figured out eh?
Negative and positive are concepts that people created. What each individual person considers negative and positive is subjective. I feel like this thread is talking in circles.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Hey braves, if humans had the technology to force every present and future human in the world to experience nothing but joy and not have the capability to suffer at all (through neural implants, virtual reality, drugs, genetic engineering, etc), would having children no longer be immoral?
I read this and think of Brave New World. Growing babies and all.
Edit: Derp, missed the bolded part first time I read (and quoted) this. -_-;
Trent Strong
Banned
Oh, whoops, my bad. Carry on then.
But it is also something you don't have to worry about seeing as you're on NeoGAF so this really isn't much of a dilemma anymore now is it?
toddhunter
Member
My daughter just gave me a cuddle and smiled. It made me happy too.
Aquamarine
Member
You still haven't answered my question--why would I want to share my subjectivity if I know it's doomed to be subjective? Why can't I search for objectivity instead?----On that note, what is objective to you? What--for a fact--is not subjective in any way, shape or form?
Okay. An atomic bomb blows things up. It creates a hole in the ground. It disintegrates things in a raging fireball. When a bomb hits, the Earth is directly impacted. So regardless of its implications in how it "prevented the loss of millions more lives," it creates a moment of sheer, utter, CHAOS. How can you look at a mushroom cloud, a gigantic explosion, and consider that anything but EVIL? It seems like the only way we can even attempt such a thing is deflecting its "evil-ness" by making excuses (it prevented millions more lives from dying, so it was actually good!).
I just a very hard time considering the fact that the explosion itself was anything but "evil." If you say "it's subjective to think the explosion was evil"---think about it for a second. How did the explosion benefit anything in any way? Did it create? Did it manufacture? Did it harmonize? Did it live passively? Did it contribute to an ecosystem? Did it balance the Earth? Is there any possible way at ALL that the massive explosion could be in any way, shape or form...ANYTHING but a representation of sheer destruction? If not, I can't see how it can be construed as anything BUT objectively evil.
I have a hard time assuming a binary relationship between suffering and joy because of how compartmentalized they can be at times. Consider situations where in one situation you forget about your troubles and experience "joy," where in another situation you remind yourself of your suffering. If you completely forget about your suffering at that moment, aren't you juggling both joy AND suffering in your mind? If suffering can co-exist with joy at some fundamental level, the quantity of "joy" isn't in contest with the quantity of "suffering," so one doesn't have to justify the other.
For me, I've lived a fantastic and fulfilling life. Good family, good friends, good job all sorts of goodness and I am truly lucky. Lots of hard work, but lots of luck. I would argue that had you asked me a few years ago how good my life was, I'd have told you it couldn't get any better.
Then I had children, and for the first time in my life I understood the meaning of it .. life. Its primal, its innate and it isn't something you're going to read about in a book. To me, its a biochemical release in the brain that oozes with fulfillment, purpose and satisfaction. I'm not sure how else to put it into words, I suppose only a parent can understand wholly. My kids are a beacon of hope and light in my life. I live for the small moments.. the leg hugs, the wrestling but mostly the memories and leaving something behind on this planet when I'm worm food. I will have left my mark, but not something worldly, material or monetary .. I will have left the chain of life behind that will hopefully continue that traditional indefinitely.
Thats exciting, but in the end I don't think about it that deep on the daily lol. Its more about that day my children were born, that feeling washing over my existence that all is right and that this is what I was put on this planet to do. Seed.
More power to anyone who doesn't want to have kids, clearly its not for everyone. Whats good for me isn't the same for someone else. But, that feeling I'm talking about ... its something childless humans will never experience on their one chance at life. And that makes me sad for them.
Then I had children, and for the first time in my life I understood the meaning of it .. life. Its primal, its innate and it isn't something you're going to read about in a book. To me, its a biochemical release in the brain that oozes with fulfillment, purpose and satisfaction. I'm not sure how else to put it into words, I suppose only a parent can understand wholly. My kids are a beacon of hope and light in my life. I live for the small moments.. the leg hugs, the wrestling but mostly the memories and leaving something behind on this planet when I'm worm food. I will have left my mark, but not something worldly, material or monetary .. I will have left the chain of life behind that will hopefully continue that traditional indefinitely.
Thats exciting, but in the end I don't think about it that deep on the daily lol. Its more about that day my children were born, that feeling washing over my existence that all is right and that this is what I was put on this planet to do. Seed.
More power to anyone who doesn't want to have kids, clearly its not for everyone. Whats good for me isn't the same for someone else. But, that feeling I'm talking about ... its something childless humans will never experience on their one chance at life. And that makes me sad for them.
Sorry, I didn't mean to. Hopefully my responses convince you otherwise.
The price of non-sentience is ultimately nothing. You feel nothing good or bad. Sentience moves you beyond neutrality. You may ultimately feel good or bad. "Wonder of the entire universe" is subjective and may be good or bad depending on the subject experiencing it. Should your positive experience allow you to take the risk that another subject will feel the same way?
This is still a means/end argument that assumes humans will make a positive intervention in the future. Whether the suffering of the present will permit the non-suffering of all those in the future is not certain and I'm not convinced we can justify the risk.
GAF is a simple place after all
I don't think I've ever met a single person that was completely 100% free of mental defects, it would be creepy if I did though.
in short no one in this life goes by unscathed.
Perhaps not from your perspective, but it is from mine. Pain is a part of growth. How can I learn that it is unwise to touch a flame if I don't know what pain is? How can I think before I speak, if I don't know that words can cause others a different kind of pain? How can I learn wisdom, except it be that I know what pain is? I am of the belief that I cannot appreciate fully what it means to be happy if I have never been sad, what it means to be at peace if I have never known pain. How can I know I don't like pain, if I have never felt it? Even pains I never hope to confront, I have such hope because of other pains.
Without pain there is no birth, no life, no growth. Life is too wondrous a thing for me to resist on account of pain. The world is too beautiful a place to despise because it hurts at times. People have too much potential for me to hate because they could hurt me.
To put it as poetically as possible, roses smell too nice for me to avoid for fear of thorns.
Came to post this.
After having my daughter I understood all the hackneyed cliches. It's incredible how it alters your perception of reality so quickly from self-focused to family-focused. It's like a strange veil being lifted from your eyes that there is more to you, than you. And stranger still is that most of it is innate!
I'd never trade a second of our time together, but of course, parenting is not for everyone.
hgarrett54
Banned
You're totally overthinking it.
You don't necessarily. My premise is utilitarian in that suffering is bad and joy is good.
I don't think intelligent, conscious existence is good in and of itself if it only allows you to experience suffering, and I think death is suffering. Human life MAY be net positive, I'm not discounting that possibility. I only think that the risk that it's not makes forcing people to experience it immoral.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
Its been almost three pages and im kind of surprised at the lack of any RD Laing quotes so far.
Because there is nothing wrong with subjectivity as long as you value yourself. Why -must- you have an objective standard of morality? How can you know what is best for everyone, what would make everyone happiest? And is that what objective morality is? What if objective morality is what's best for the universe? What if objective morality is what's best for me? Who knows - and that's why I think objectivity and morality should have nothing to do with each other.
I don't think I have the capacity to observe anything in a truly objective way, so it may as well not exist to me. Objectivity requires something be true outside the constraints of my mind, but because I can't ever observe outside the constraints of my mind, I can't ever know if something is objective.
Because calling it evil ascribes all these other superfluous traits to it. Malice, objective negativity, 'wrongness'. I mean, I will personally say "that's terrible" and if I were the type of person who used evil in his every day speech, maybe I'd call it evil - but do I think this is an objectively bad (evil) thing? No - I don't know what something objectively bad would be. And I really don't care - I care less about objective morality even if it were to exist than I do my subjective morality.
All those things you mentioned as positives are not 'objective' positives, they are your personal ideas of what something positive would be. And that's okay, I think. What does it matter if you don't know what objective morality entails? Isn't your personal moral standard good enough?
braves01 said:
Non-sentience isn't neutral, non-sentience is non-existence (in this context). Neutral is me not feeling particularly good or bad about something. Me not existing != to that feeling. I think I disagree with a lot of what you say because you seem to be giving value to non-existence, even if that value is '0'. Non-existence isn't on the scale of existence, it's not a neutral point, it's just nothing.
It would be like me listing all the kinds of rocks that exist from smallest to biggest - at no point in that scale does "nothingness" exist - nothingness isn't a rock, and can't be used in the 'sorting' of rocks.
How is death suffering? I'm not talking about the process of dying, but death itself. If you were atomized instantly, how would you have suffered?
Thanks for sharing the video. Very insightful stats. It actually raised new hypothesizes. I need more historical data to verify the hypothesizes, however. Cool stuff.
RawkHawk2010
Member
Most things would like to have the opportunity to exist.
(Even if it's only for a while.)
(Even if it's only for a while.)
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
But then if the parents agreed not to have children then who is the person you're asking whether they are glad to be born or not? Since he/she ceases to exist, of course, and thus you do not have a reason to go back in time in the first place.
Hah!
Choke on the Magic
Banned
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the OP. How can anyone think like this?
I acknowledge that death may be so sudden/instantaneous so as to have really been "suffered" but even the fear of death and reality of death for most people undeniably qualifies as suffering. Not to mention depression, other ailments, and other aspects of life that qualify as suffering.
I (and most everyone else who has ever lived) experience joy daily (across a very wide range), and I also experience suffering from time to time (also across a very wide spectrum) so existence is not only about suffering.
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
I think you undervalue life and sentience. I wasn't talking about good feelings it gives me. I was talking about it's existence.
Are you paying attention to my point? If we end ourselves we only guarantee that the life-developing machine goes on without us, we guarantee the uninterrupted cycle of reproductive suffering. How is playing our part in the reproductive cycle a "risk" rather the continuation of the only chance there is to break the suffering portion? As I said, because it continues without us, our part can be viewed as an intervention, not an initiative.
I don't see how it can be easy for you to disregard this. In your own position, you are saying we have a choice to prevent future humans from suffering, and that we are responsible for that which we do not prevent by abstaining from reproduction. Yet if we are also the only beings with the potential to prevent all suffering at some point in the future, and we choose to completely give up all efforts for that that potential prevention, how are we not responsible for the suffering that could have been stopped? The reasoning is same as what you would use to rule out having children, just less immediate.
Still, these arguments are humoring your position. I think you undervalue life itself if you think a little suffering makes it not worth it.
The industrial revolution is very recent in the full scope of our evolution. Our golden age has indeed just begun.
stufte
Member
You make huge assumptions about "most people". Your own anecdotal evidence of the fear of death and any potential suffering isn't evidence.
Suicide rates are comparatively low compared to those who want to stay alive, so I guess most people want to live or exist no matter how shitty their lives are.
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