Philosophical Vegan Forum

In the interests of precision it's better if you respond by quoting the parts of my essay that you're responding to.
eg "quote": This is wrong because...
"quote": This is wrong because...
I'm sure people can click the link without any hassle.

There's no guarantee that the content will still be up in a couple years, so the discussion could lose context. However, I will probably end up quoting virtually all of it in reply so perhaps that's not a problem... I just wouldn't want anybody to be concerned that I'm taking anything out of context or dodging an important point if it's not accessible anymore.

@SteveGodfrey @brimstoneSalad Here you go. Also here's a word doc to bb-code converter for anyone that might find it useful in future: http://any2bb.com/

Spliced together wiki section and response essay:

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SECTION 1

Before analyzing BS's objections it's necessary to clarify what we're dealing with and what BS must establish in order for his objections to be successful. Once these parameters are established BS's objections can be dismissed without too much fuss.

The 3 CA elements pertinent to this discussion:

1. The following 2 elements are always required for consent: The person to whom consent attaches must be identifiable and consent must be given prior. These elements are baked into whatever definition you choose. As explained above, the absence of these is what undergirds CA. In order for BS to undermine this he must

1.i. demonstrate any type of consent where either of these elements aren't required. (Before going any further I recommend reading this to avoid common pitfalls when it comes to understanding consent.)

2. It's impossible to get consent before bringing human entities into existence (cf P4 of my Defense). This is grounded in the fact there aren't identifiable entities with capacity for consenting on behalf of the specific human entities they could become before being brought into existence as those specific human entities (IEs). There are no whos to speak of. It's therefore impossible for consent to be given or refused prior to human entities being brought into existence. In order for BS to undermine this he must establish

2.i. there are IEs and it's possible for IEs to give or refuse consent for being brought into existence on behalf of the specific human entities they could become, or

2.ii. the absence of IEs and the impossibility of giving or refusing consent for being brought into existence are irrelevant when discussing consent vis-à-vis the ethicality of procreation.

3. CA doesn't assert that procreation is unethical because it's impossible to get consent before bringing human entities into existence. CA asserts that procreation is unethical because bringing human entities into existence always results in nonconsensual inevitable harm. In other words, unethicality isn't triggered by being brought into existence. It's triggered by the inevitable harm experienced as a consequence of being brought into existence (harm is used here as an exemplar for every kind of harm, cf section 5.

I'll draw on the gambling thief analogy to clarify the distinction. There are 2 slot machines, 1 guarantees gains and 2 guarantees losses. If it was impossible to get consent to take money from your friend's wallet to use in slot machine 1, the unethicality of taking and using the money without permission could be overridden by the justifiable purpose of realizing gains for your friend (the unethicality of acting without consent can be overridden by justifiable purpose, eg pushing someone out of the way while being chased by someone with a knife, Section 2.1 below). However unethicality is clearcut if you take the money to use in slot machine 2. (This analogy is restricted to illuminating the difference between consent attaching to being brought into existence and consent attaching to the consequent harm of being brought into existence. The machines don't represent any kind of existence.) It isn't uncommon for antinatalists to also get this wrong.

I'm using the term human entities instead of people in order to avoid confusion with concepts such as personhood. CA isn't concerned with when or how a person gains capacity for consent. It's only concerned with non-existent non-entities as opposed to existent entities. All that matters is that there's nothing and nobody to seek consent from prior to the procreation process (Section 2.ii). The importance of this distinction will soon become apparent.

In order for BS to undermine this he must:

3.i. rebut the principal that absent justifiable purpose (purpose sub specie aeternitatis in the case of procreation, Section 7) nonconsensual exposure to inevitable harm is unethical.

In order for BS to sustain his objections he must demonstrate 1.i, establish 2.i or 2.ii, or rebut 3.i. Failure to do any of these means his objections fail. I'll refer to 1.i, 2.i, 2.ii, and 3.i as the 4 benchmarks going forward.


SECTION 2

BS divides his objections into 4 sections under the main heading Consent to Exist (1): Definition of Consent (2), Consent for Non-persons (3), Gambling Thief Analogy (4), and Acting Without Consent (5).

1. Consent to Exist

BS asserts "this refers to the usually deontological claim that acting on another without consent is always wrong". I'd be surprised to hear anyone argue absolutely "that acting on another without consent is always wrong". Whether or not acting on another without consent is wrong depends on context. If I'm running from someone chasing me with a knife and I push you over because you're blocking my path you'd be hard pressed to say I was wrong to do that. On the other hand I'm confident of near universal agreement that sexual intercourse without consent is always wrong (I say near because it depends on variables like religion and culture, as do all moral judgments). It's more accurate to state the principle as something like acting on another without consent is wrong absent justifiable cause. (NB: Don't confuse being brought into existence is always wrong with acting on another without consent is always wrong. These are different claims measured against different metrics.)

The second half misses the mark by stating, "because a non-existent being can not consent to come into existence creating a sentient being is always wrong". This is a common CA misrepresentation. Per Sections 1.3, creating sentient beings isn't wrong because non-existent beings can't consent to coming into existence, but rather because bringing sentient beings into existence always results in nonconsensual inevitable harm.

But credit where credit's due. BS refers to "non-existent being". It's unfortunate he doesn't stick with this going forward instead of shifting to capacity and personhood of existent entities.

BS doesn't meet any of the 4 benchmarks in this section.


2. Definition of Consent

BS opted for the Merriam Webster definition (sense 2.1): "compliance in or approval of what is done or proposed by another". This definition confirms Section 1.1, that the person to whom consent attaches must be identifiable and consent must be given prior are baked into whatever definition you choose.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Consent has a range of usages, both common and more technical, and typically it is grouped into "types" of consent from explicit/expressed informed consent of various kinds to implied consent and consenting by proxy for somebody else and every combination thereof. Every field has its own standards for consent and its own ways of categorizing them: there is no objective qualification or accounting of the "types" of consent that would make credible any claims of "there are three/four/five types of consent in the universe" because consent exists on a spectrum and is a matter of degrees along various axes -- however, these axes can be understood:

The opening paragraph tackles types of consent concluding that "consent exists on a spectrum and is a matter of degrees". This is the first time I've ever come across types of consent being expressed as lying on a spectrum. I don't know how that would work - would the order be explicit→implied→substituted, substituted→explicit→implied, implied→substituted→explicit...? If the argument is that there aren't clear delineations between different types of consent, inferred by the word degrees, that's nonsense. Different types of consent share common characteristics but there isn't fluidity between them. If however the purpose is merely showcasing various types of consent, that doesn't contribute anything of value to the discussion. Impossibility of all types of consent is the crux, not consent classification. This paragraph is irrelevant.

brimstoneSalad wrote:1. Party Who is doing the consenting? Is it the person being acted upon, or somebody else? And if it is the one being acted upon, what state of mind is the person in? Is the person his or herself? Does the person even have a sense of self or personhood? Ultimately the theoretically perfect case of this would be that the person being acted upon is giving consent in perfectly sound state of mind and with a perfect sense of self consciousness -- this is of course an impossible ideal, but it doesn't mean getting as close as possible isn't valuable.

The next paragraph, "1. Party", is where BS unwittingly starts pulling at the thread that unravels everything. Asking such questions as "Who is doing the consenting?" and "Does the person even have a sense of self or personhood?", reveals that he thinks already existing human entities are relevant to the discussion. Per Sections 1.2,1.3, CA is "only concerned with non-existent non-entities". This paragraph is irrelevant.

brimstoneSalad wrote:2. Information How informed is the party who is giving consent? Again, this lies on a spectrum from complete ignorance to perfect omniscience of the act and all of its context and consequences -- the latter being again impossible. The impossibility of perfect information again doesn't invalidate the value of getting as close as we can.

The next paragraph, "2. Information", skims over informed consent, once again revealing BS thinks already existing human entities are relevant to the discussion. Per Sections 1.2,1.3, CA is "only concerned with non-existent non-entities". This paragraph is irrelevant.

brimstoneSalad wrote:3. Expression How is the consent expressed, or is it expressed at all? The worst case here is "implied" consent where we just assume consent because a person has not communicated clearly enough that he or she does not consent, better is spoken consent improved by removing any possible ambiguity until we reach another (currently) impossible standard of infallible mind-reading.

The next paragraph, "3. Expression", BS defines implied consent as "where we just assume consent because a person has not communicated clearly enough that he or she does not consent". That's not how it works. Consent for sex can't be implied on the basis refusal to consent hasn't been communicated clearly. Refusal to consent not being clearly communicated only establishes that refusal to consent hasn't been clearly communicated. You don't get a free pass to fuck someone just because they haven't given you a clear "no". You must be able to establish at least a reasonable belief there was consent to have a hope of walking free. In other cases such as emergency surgery on unconscious car crash victims, implied consent derives from the assumption that they have an interest in being restored as much as possible to how they were before the crash, not that consent isn't clearly communicated. However, all that aside (I know this is getting repetitive but this is all I have to work with), already existing human entities aren't relevant to the discussion. Per Sections 1.2,1.3, CA is "only concerned with non-existent non-entities". This paragraph is irrelevant.

brimstoneSalad wrote:As you can see, along every axis of variable relevant to consent there is a spectrum and an impossible perfect extreme -- perfect consent is impossible, so we're *always* dealing with various degrees of imperfect consent. Deontology fails to deal with nuance like this, preferring either-or circumstances, but that's not in line with the reality of consent in this universe. Consent is not an either-or absolute, and so it can not be an absolute standard for right and wrong behavior -- that, of course, doesn't mean it can't be a relative standard of more or less wrong actions depending on the degree of consent achieved.

The final paragraph sums up this section, adding nothing of value. BS doesn't meet any of the 4 benchmarks in this section.


3. Consent for Non-persons

brimstoneSalad wrote:The typical argument from anti-natalists goes something like this:

"A person can't consent to come into the world, so having children is always wrong"
The obvious rational reply is by analogy: "Infants can't consent to medical procedures so parents consent for them, how is that different?"

This anti-natalist objection to consent by-proxy or substitution is overwhelmingly contradicted in practice with medicine: When somebody is unconscious or unable to consent to medical care (or other immediate issues) we typically rely on professionals and family to consent for them. This isn't seen as a problem, so nobody is acting inconsistently by allowing the will-be family (like the mother) to consent for the birth of her beloved child.

To deal with that problem, anti-natalists may try to draw a superficial semantic distinction about consent, something like:

"The infant is a person and a non-person isn't, in order to consent for somebody you have to be able to identify the person being consented for"

There are many equally obvious problems with this reasoning.

The first and most essential problem (one that makes the point irrelevant and philosophically tone-deaf) is that while anti-natalists may attempt to refute the comparison by drawing an arbitrary semantic distinction between consent for an infant and consent for somebody who isn't born, this remains an arbitrary semantic distinction and nothing more -- it is not a *morally relevant* distinction. The anti-natalist claim completely misses the philosophical significance of substituted consent which is to act in the best interest of the person or not-yet-person when more explicit consent can't be obtained. The spirit of substituted consent is (along with all morally relevant considerations) maintained even if the principle can be argued not to apply on some kind of morally irrelevant technicality.

The second problem is the attempt of anti-natalists to have their cake and eat it too. To turn the semantic nitpick around, if we're dealing with a non-person then consent should not be an issue. Do they have a problem with people lifting rocks because the rocks can not consent to being lifted? We should expect not. If there is no person, then technically, consent should not be an issue: when the act is actually done there is no person, so the act can not be a violation of consent and thus can not possibly be wrong as such a violation. It's much like Epicurus' witty paradox about the fear of death (indeed fear of death itself doesn't make much sense, but a want of life does):

“Why should I fear death? If I am, then death is not. If Death is, then I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?"
-Epicurus

The person simply can not exist when the action to create a person is initiated. Only long after the act is done does a person come into being (in fact of reality, that fetus becomes a person very gradually into childhood) -- at that point consent arguably becomes relevant to actions on that person, but never to actions on a non-person which account for all of those actions prior to the person's actual existing. IF you can credibly point to the eventual person as a victim of the action whose consent was violated, then likewise that will-be-person can be identified for substituted consent in the same way it may be done for an infant or other person unable to consent in medicine.

The third and final problem is the transient and somewhat subjective nature of personhood itself as hinted to above; infants have little or no sense of personhood yet, so how can you identify a *person* in a vessel that does not yet have that capacity? And if we identify the person the infant might become from the cloud of future possibility, how is that any more credible than identifying the person an egg might become from the same? From an egg and a pool of sperm, to a fetus, to an infant, and even to an adult who may still fundamentally change as a person into somebody else, what we're talking about is a cloud of future possibility that is only constricted over time, but never to a certainty. Or instead is a person identified by DNA alone? Then what of identical twins and clones? What are the implications for tumors and abortions? What if the choice to bring a new person into the world pre-identified the egg and sperm used rather than relying on luck? Or what if that choice occurred after fertilization coming from the decision to abort or not? These are questions anti-natalists do not answer because they have no answers for them, all they can do is draw an arbitrary line without justification in attempt to prop up a dogma they have already decided was true without careful consideration.

BS misrepresents CA again: "The typical argument from anti-natalists goes something like this: "A person can't consent to come into the world, so having children is always wrong"". Per Section 1.3 above, creating a sentient being isn't wrong because a non-existent being can't consent to coming into existence, but rather because bringing human entities into existence always results in nonconsensual inevitable harm.

Now, look how BS shifts the terminology. In his Consent to Exist section, he misrepresents CA as "because a non-existent being can not consent to come into existence creating a sentient being is always wrong". BS has changed this to "A person can't consent to come into the world, so having children is always wrong". "A non-existent being can not consent" is not the same as "a person can't consent" but the only conclusion that can be drawn is BS thinks person and non-existent being are the same thing. This is confirmed when he raises the "distinction between consent for an infant and consent for somebody who isn't born" → somebody who isn't born = person = non-existent being. He goes so far as saying differentiating between these amounts to "a superficial semantic distinction", "an arbitrary semantic distinction", "semantic nitpick", and "not a *morally relevant* distinction". This degree of fractal wrongness is more than enough justification to dismiss this entire section out of hand. (This is why I chose to use human entities instead of people, to steer well clear of this mess.)

BS doesn't meet any of the 4 benchmarks in this section.


4. Gambling Thief Analogy

brimstoneSalad wrote:In response to the claim that most people end up being reasonably happy about existing, commonly an analogy to stealing somebody's money and gambling with it (giving them the proceeds) is made, however this analogy fails in many important ways.

Most crucially, gambling is Zero Sum, often even negative sum (because the house always wins) and life is not. If you stole money from people to gamble, on average you would never be able to give them back more than you stole; this is statistically a harm, thus it's wrong to do because you will cause more harm than benefit. If you had a magic slot machine that paid out so substantially more than you put in, losses were incredibly rare, and the overwhelming majority of people you stole from to play the game for them were thankful for it, that would be very different.

If for some reason you were unable to ask consent to borrow a quarter from your friend's wallet to use in that magic slot machine which closes in one minute for a 99% chance of winning big for him on his behalf (something he or she would almost certainly consent to if it were possible), it would arguably be more ethical to take the risk on his or her behalf in order to yield a much greater benefit.

It's hard to imagine a realistically analogous scenario so pressing and odds so favorable that we'd be unable to ask for consent, so most of the time we're dealing with the *choice* not to ask for consent when it could be asked for -- that's another issue covered below.

This is the analogy I used in Section 1.3. Its purpose is showing how gambling somebody else's money without their consent is wrong. Fairly straightforward and easy to see how it serves as a proxy for CA. We can quibble over whether or not the analogy carries any weight. It doesn't matter either way. Happy to let that lie where it falls. There are however 2 points worth mentioning.

BS misfires on his analysis by saying "gambling is Zero Sum, often even negative sum (because the house always wins) and life is not". This isn't correct. The house always wins is an adage, not an empirical claim. It's true that the house always wins in aggregate (they have to in order to turn a profit) but some individuals make out like bandits from gambling. Most others lose, but nothing too catastrophic, and the rest get wiped out. Gambling is actually a rather fitting metaphor for life. It's awesome for some, fair to meh for others, and hell for the rest.

The final paragraph warrants attention because it reinforces how BS shifts meanings and doesn't understand what's in play here. BS shifts the framing of the analogy from impossibility of consent simpliciter to whether or not circumstances make it easier or more difficult to ask for consent. Whether or not circumstances make it easier or more difficult to ask for consent is irrelevant to CA.

BS doesn't meet any of the 4 benchmarks in this section.


5. Acting Without Consent

brimstoneSalad wrote:Even understanding that perfect consent is impossible, a broader challenge worth mentioning is the dogma that acting without consent (in any degree) is always wrong. The problems deontology has with consent have already been covered, but why might consent be important at all in a consequentialist framework?

It actually is typically inappropriate to do things without people's consent when they're capable of giving it even if you think it'll be OK, but the reasons for this are complicated and have more to do with ulterior motives that gambit would imply.
Because consent is usually a very reliable way to determine if something is in a person's interests or not, if it's easy to ask it eliminates the possibility of acting against those interests. Even if you're 99% sure somebody wants something, you don't have to take the risk they don't if you have the ability to ask. Therefore, if it's possible to ask we should, and that's what makes not asking (where possible) wrong. It's creating an unnecessary risk. This is not true where asking consent is impractical or impossible: the impracticality or impossibility of the query can justify the small risk.

To be clear it's not the acting without consent in situations where it would be easy to obtain consent that is necessarily wrong in itself, it's the failure to ask consent that was wrong. To bring this back to the implied gambit, if you ask first, whether the consent is given or not you are acting in the interest of the person so there is no harm (to that person) from asking. If you do not ask, you may be acting against the interests of that person, so likely the only motivation for not asking is selfish (that you WANT to do the action and don't want the risk of a "no" which would force you to stop or remove the plausible deniability that you were acting against the person's will).

Such is the case for sexual intercourse: the only reason somebody would not get consent is if he or she wants to do it regardless of consent. Consent is not asked because the aspiring rapist doesn't wan't the risk of confronting a no and either having to stop or having to actually admit to himself that he's doing a rape with no plausible way to deny it. There's an inherently selfish motive there which indicates a willingness to do harm for one's own benefit. It's almost always possible to ask for consent at some point, and sexual intercourse is almost never so urgent as require it go ahead without being able to ask -- thus the whole fixation on consent as the ultimately litmus for not being a rapist regardless of what you assume the person wants.

Of course, there are grey areas and exceptions to every rule. A woman whose husband had an accident and went into a coma from which he won't awaken, but whose sexual organs are still functioning, may wish to have a child with him knowing he wanted that too and trying to keep a part of him alive. He's no longer a person in any meaningful way, there's no way to ask for consent, or to wait for it, and yet it was understood that this is something he wanted. He might have changed his mind knowing he wouldn't be around to see them, but there's no way to know that. Is it wrong? Is it rape?

The bottom line is that there's nothing innate to consent, but rather the kind of motivations behind not asking when it's possible and the benefit consent has in increasing the probability that we're respecting somebody's interests. When it's not possible to ask consent and the probability that our actions are in line with the person's interests (or would be or will be interests) then the argument that consent hasn't been given is morally irrelevant.

So the only genuinely important philosophical question around bringing children into the world is whether it does more good or more harm, and that's an empirical one that has nothing innately to do with consent.

The second sentence of the second paragraph seals the deal: "It actually is typically inappropriate to do things without people's consent when they're capable of giving it...".

I'm out.

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I don't understand why I should have a moral obligation to respect the consent of non-persons.

I mean I can acknowledge there can be virtue or vice for the kind of person you want to be, in whether there was charachter virtue in bringing another being into the world being something you might all benefit from as a family. And it being the right time for you to rise to the challenge or a character vice in passing the chance up and leaving it too late.

I don't follow how I'm responsible as a parent for the possiblity of my projeny never wishing to have been born because of bad luck. The mere concept that they would blame me is, I think, a pychological failing to acheive 'tranquility of mind in the face of anything the universe throws at you' (ataraxia). The most I'd be on the line for is being too lazy by my own standards to teach this during their upbringing.

Christine Korsgaard characterized the force of moral obligation as stemming from the feeling that to violate it would be to “lose your integrity and so your identity… [T]o no longer be able to think of yourself under the description under which you value yourself and find your life to be worth living…”

It is a curious subject what different people view the bounds of morality to be though:

Elizabeth Foreman has an agent-centered moral philosophy, according to which the relevant locus of moral assessment is our attitudes, which can be either morally “appropriate” or “inappropriate,” depending on certain “normative facts” about their objects. . .

The idea, then, is that merely by existing separately from us, things have their own independent good, which demands our moral respect. Foreman thereby extends the moral circle to include not just animals of every sort, but prairies, plants, bodies of water, mountains, and even inanimate objects. Indeed, at one point, in an apparent effort to demonstrate that the opportunities to moralize are potentially limitless, she tells the tale of a person who wrongs a copy machine:

If Fran takes an axe to the Xerox machine in a fit of rage, that may well be wrong, and not simply because she has rendered the machine useless to others. Thinking that it is perfectly fine to wantonly destroy an object that upsets you displays a warped view of the object, and of what one has a right to demand of situations that involve it.

I got into a debate with someone who would flip a coin on anonymous people in the trolley problem because they'd need more information to know which side would be in their sphere of moral concern.

And trying to argue people over to valuing animals often runs into this problem of people being basically moral disruptiphobes. It's hard to get them to see that messing with the social contract that binds farmers to consumers is something that should matter to them.

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NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 2:17 pm -
I don't understand why I should have a moral obligation to respect the consent of non-persons.
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I'm not arguing that we have moral obligations towards non-existent non-entities. It's impossible to have moral obligations towards non-existent non-entities. Please read Section 1.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 6:15 pmI'm not arguing that we have moral obligations towards non-existent non-entities.

Sure, but the only way I can read an ethical obligation to avoid "creating sentient beings. . . because bringing sentient beings into existence always results in nonconsensual inevitable harm" is that there's an ethical obligation to non-persons like zygotes in preventing them from becoming sentient persons.

Your concept of ethics takes for granted it being reasonable for us to weigh in the balance our parents past decisions for having us before we were even alive for any microscopic pain we may feel today, whereas my ethics only deal with the interplay of people alive at the time.

Once a human being is sentient you have a responsibility not to cause the person unjustified harm, but you are not responsible for every possible harm they experience, since we know it's in our psychology to be able to handle suffering and grow from it or cherish what time we did have.

So the choice to bring life into the world for me cannot have anything to do with consent, and the choice to keep alive fetus's at the first sign of sentience is simply respecting their interests. And all else equal (like no net negative impact on the parents or the world), is a virtuous decision to not harm the fetus, especially considering the opportunities for happy flourshing are easily attainable for most.

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NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:02 pm

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 6:15 pmI'm not arguing that we have moral obligations towards non-existent non-entities.

Sure, but the only way I can read an ethical obligation to avoid "creating sentient beings. . . because bringing sentient beings into existence always results in nonconsensual inevitable harm" is that there's an ethical obligation to non-persons like zygotes in preventing them from becoming sentient persons.

Your concept of ethics takes for granted it being reasonable for us to weigh in the balance our parents past decisions for having us before we were even alive for any microscopic pain we may feel today, whereas my ethics only deal with the interplay of people alive at the time.

Once a human being is sentient you have a responsibility not to cause the person unjustified harm, but you are not responsible for every possible harm they experience, since we know it's in our psychology to be able to handle suffering and grow from it or cherish what time we did have.

So the choice to bring life into the world for me cannot have anything to do with consent, and the choice to keep alive fetus's at the first sign of sentience is simply respecting their interests. And all else equal (like no net negative impact on the parents or the world), is a virtuous decision to not harm the fetus, especially considering the opportunities for happy flourshing are easily attainable for most.

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1 "non-persons like zygotes", "the choice to keep alive fetus's at the first sign of sentience is simply respecting their interests"
- This isn't about non-persons or fetuses. It's about non-existing non-entities.

2 "Your concept of ethics..."
- My "concept of ethics" is that it's unethical to expose humans to inevitable harm if it's impossible to get their consent to be exposed to inevitable harm. I'm simply applying that principle to procreation because procreation has the consequence of exposing humans to inevitable harm when it's impossible to get their consent.
If you accept the general principle as I just stated it then you need to account for why you make an exception for procreation. I outline options for doing this in section 6 of my Defense (linked in Section 1.2 of my above essay). Ultimately I think you end up falling foul of the special pleading fallacy.

3 "Once a human being is sentient you have a responsibility not to cause the person unjustified harm..."
This discussion isn't about "How to live a good life". It's about "Is it good to be made to live?".

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The desire to not "expose humans to inevitable harm if it's impossible to get their consent" is far, far, tangentionally removed from any general rule in my philosophy, and nowhere to be found in relation to human entities before they were entities at all. I'm more concerned with raising everyone's possibility for the positive liberty of getting to experience happy flourishing.

It is as far removed from my philosophy as deontologist saying all exploitation is wrong, so putting social pressure on someone to hold the door open for you.

I think being concerned with your parents decision making before you were born to the degree of holding them responsible for any minute possiblity of pain is a psychological failing, and way outside my agent centred virtue-exemplarist ethics.

You have a negative utilitarian ethics which holds to the abstract ideal of getting future peoples consent before they are people, and I just see that mattering to you as bizarre, in the same way other people's ethical system incorporates fax-machines or some people's doesn't incorporate animals.

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NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:12 pm -

The desire to not "expose humans to inevitable harm if it's impossible to get their consent" is far, far, tangentionally removed from any general rule in my philosophy,

Or 99.99% of all moral philosophy. It's so specific it could only have been fabricated ad hoc as a rationalization for antinatalism.

It's like people who say something like: "Avoid harming sentient beings unless those sentient beings were raised for the purposes of food and are not of the same species as the one eating them and are not of a species with members capable of calculus (to get out of eating extra-terrestrial aliens in a thought experiment)"

It's a very specific dogma transparently crafted to reach a specific pre-determined conclusion. Of course as a meat-eater SteveGodfrey probably has no problem with that kind of rationalization, but it precisely illustrates the point of the intellectual dishonesty involved in these tailor made moral premises.

@NonZeroSum I read through his reply, but I didn't see any substantive reply to my arguments there, did you?
I'm seeing some complaint that I'm misrepresenting him because it's consent to harm vs. consent to life (The article isn't about him, it's about the commonly used argument). I will add in explanation that the argument caries and consent to harm is a variation of it.
Otherwise I see some bizarre allegations of what I already believe based on the wording I used to give simple explanations to concepts. Like "Hah, got you, you said person!"
What? Somebody missed the point. I feel like he's cherry picking for semantic quibbles to get around the philosophical concepts he can't respond to.