Philosophical Vegan Forum

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 2:54 pm

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.

"The desire to not "expose humans to inevitable harm if it's impossible to get their consent""
- I'm not talking about a desire. I'm talking about an ethical principle. Do you disagree that "It's unethical to expose humans to inevitable harm if it's impossible to get their consent" is a good principle? If you agree with it then why can't it apply to making people exist?
Your "99.99% of all moral philosophy" is about how to live a good life. I'm discussing whether or not it's good to be made to live. If your moral philosophy doesn't have a suitable container for discussing this, then your moral philosophy is inadequate (cf Julio Cabrera's contention in his advocacy for a new radical bioethics).

"fabricated ad hoc as a rationalization for antinatalism", "It's a very specific dogma transparently crafted to reach a specific pre-determined conclusion."
- Those are positive assertions attracting the burden of proof. I look forward to seeing you substantiate them.
- I can say the same thing for veganism which posits that it's wrong for humans to make sentient creatures exist because of the harms they'll inevitably be exposed to? How do you square that away?

"as a meat-eater SteveGodfrey probably has no problem with that kind of rationalization"
- Really? Okay. As a vegan you probably have no problem being a self righteous hack. Is this the direction you want for our discussion?

The wiki article has been updated to clarify the points of confusion that Steve mentioned. @NonZeroSum can you please look over it and compare it with his criticism and let me know if I missed anything?

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pm "The desire to not "expose humans to inevitable harm if it's impossible to get their consent""
- I'm not talking about a desire. I'm talking about an ethical principle.

An ad hoc one, that's the problem. How do you derive this, or is it just coming from your desire?
Ethical principles need to be substantiated by reason to carry weight, not be pulled out the the air with the only apparent motivation to come to a very specific conclusion.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pmDo you disagree that "It's unethical to expose humans to inevitable harm if it's impossible to get their consent" is a good principle?

It's an absurd principle.

First, even for a hedonist it should be "Net harm", meaning harm minus pleasure.
Second, consent is not inherently relevant to hedonistic calculus -- for a hedonistic consequentialist, it is appropriate to expose people to harm as long as the pleasure is greater than the harm without consent (or even against explicit refusal).
E.g. the hedonistis consequentialist will endorse kidnapping people off the street to plug them into pleasure machines against their consent, because the pleasure outweighs the harm in kidnapping them.

This was already explained in the wiki article, but for preference based consideration consent is important, but ONLY because it clarifies people's preferences and guarantees we are acting in accordance with them. If consent can not be obtained then it is unimportant, we need only act on what the preferences probably are or would probably be.

The section that you conveniently skipped explains this in detail:
wiki/index.php/Antinatalism#Acting_Without_Consent

It reflects poorly on character to fail to ask consent when it's easy to ask consent because that suggests that you don't care if somebody consents or not. When it's hard to ask consent or even impossible to ask consent, then this reflects little and not at all upon character and there are no ethical problems with it. Thus: "It's unethical ... if it's impossible to get their consent" is precisely wrong because the impossibility of asking consent is what exonerates the failure to do so; it is not unethical to fail to do the impossible.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pmYour "99.99% of all moral philosophy" is about how to live a good life.

It's not about how to be happy, it's about how to be moral. Typically being moral helps people be happy too, but that's not the point. Procreation is an important part of moral philosophy and yes 99.99% disagree with you. When you're that outnumbered, do you ever question yourself and think maybe you could be the one who is fractally wrong?

We have another member, @teo123, who thought the Earth was flat and never considered that. Now he thinks prisons don't exist, again a failure of self-reflection.

Appeal to popularity isn't *proof* of anything, but appeal to consensus within a field does help tell us what is more likely to be wrong and should help us form a healthy sense of self-doubt that keeps us clear of the Dunning Kruger effect.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pmI'm discussing whether or not it's good to be made to live.

And that is BY FAR not a question that has been ignored in philosophy. Most of the questioning is along the lines of if we are morally obligated to produce as many happy people as possible, or if it's morally permissible to abstain from having children due to personal choice.

You're so far from what the actual discussion is it's as though most people are effective altruists debating whether we should donate most of our money to effective charities or if it's morally acceptable to spend money on ourselves, and you come along and argue that we're morally compelled to steal money from effective charities and burn it.

The real question is if we are morally compelled to have children or if it is morally permissible to be childless, not whether we are morally compelled to remain childless or if it is permissible to have children.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pm"fabricated ad hoc as a rationalization for antinatalism", "It's a very specific dogma transparently crafted to reach a specific pre-determined conclusion."
- Those are positive assertions attracting the burden of proof. I look forward to seeing you substantiate them.

All claims are positive in some sense (it's just a matter of phrasing). However, I don't think you understand how burden of proof works. Your claims look like they're straight out of bahfest https://bahfest.com/
You're the one who started with the claim of this as a basis for ethics, I responded by rejecting it as ad hoc because it's very specific to your dogma and has not been demonstrated to have any other purpose or derivation than support of antinatalism for which is it being used.

Much like a scientific study that was not pre-registered, it is the burden of those DOING the study (or making the original claim) to substantiate it with argument supporting its validity. I can not be asked to prove a negative (that your substantiation doesn't exist anywhere when you will not show it), you must prove a positive by demonstrating it.

In terms you might understand (because I don't think you know anything about pre-registration or statistical significance) it's equivalent to your math teacher telling you to show your work to prove you aren't cheating. Your response can not be to demand the teacher prove you haven't done your work on a piece of napkin that you then ate and digested -- this is what you are in effect doing here. The presumption is that you have cheated and copied your answer from another person if you will not produce your work.

The NULL HYPOTHESIS is that you pulled this out of your ass to support your preconceived dogma because that's usually the case with claims like this and it's the easiest thing to do -- it's also the claim that can be proven wrong by showing me your work. I don't have a burden of proof to support a null hypothesis or provide material evidence against your unsubstantiated and apparently unfalsifiable claim.

Only you can contradict the basis of my rejection by showing that it has been derived in some other way.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pm- I can say the same thing for veganism which posits that it's wrong for humans to make sentient creatures exist because of the harms they'll inevitably be exposed to? How do you square that away?

I don't, because that's a straw man and not something I believe.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pm"as a meat-eater SteveGodfrey probably has no problem with that kind of rationalization"
- Really? Okay. As a vegan you probably have no problem being a self righteous hack. Is this the direction you want for our discussion?

If you want, but answer me this: DO you have a problem with that kind of rationalization? It's special pleading like that people use to reject the moral value of non-human animals and is apparently something you are doing.

The behavior of eating meat tacitly endorses the ethicality of doing so, particularly from somebody like you who contrary to much of the population has probably given it more careful consideration and is aware of simple scientific facts most people are not (like the nutritional adequacy of a well planned vegan diet, that these animals experience pain, etc.). You do not seem like somebody who would say "Oh no vegan diets have no B-12 and supplements are unnatural therefore wrong" or "God gave us animals to eat so that settles it". You're probably making a very specific ad hoc argument of the very type I'm criticizing to convince yourself that eating meat is ethical.

I could be wrong and you may be one of the people who is intellectually honest enough to accept that eating meat is unethical and admit that you are being unethical in doing it without giving yourself excuses and perhaps you're working on phasing meat out of your diet. If that's the case then I apologize. But I'm probably not wrong.

@brimstoneSalad all looks good, it's looking to be a really thorough article.

I don't know if it's worth covering, but there's a similar, but stronger claim some anti-natalists like Steve use that is found in buddhism which asserts the primary meaning in life is found in trying to escape any ounce of having to be exposed to pain. Though for religious buddhists the concept is complicated somewhat by reincarnation, demi-gods & demons.

"It's unethical to non-consensually expose people to inevitable dukkha, absent a purpose beyond the dukkha itself (PSSA in this case)."

"People are compelled to find PSSH only because they've been brought into existence, not because finding meaning and purpose has intrinsic value. If they don't, they'll likely spiral into depression and suicide."

7. “absent purpose sub specie aeternitatis”

Sub specie aeternitatis means from the point of view of eternity. This sits in contrast with sub specie humanitatis, from the point of view of our own temporal standing. Thus, purpose sub specie aeternitatis (PSSA) refers to purpose originating from beyond ourselves. Absent PSSA can be interpreted as humans not having any purpose originating from beyond ourselves.

The reason for including this in the definition is that PSSA is the one thing that could override the unethicality of non-consensual exposure to dukkha. If humans are a means to an end originating from beyond our own temporal standing rather than a product of blind evolutionary forces, non-consensual exposure to dukkha could become ethical (There are parallels between this and the discussion in 6.i.3 above).

Conversely, non-consensual exposure to inevitable dukkha is made even more egregious if the exposure is entirely unnecessary. Some will respond by saying that people find meaning and purpose for themselves (purpose sub specie humanitatis - PSSH), thus the inevitable exposure to harm by virtue of being brought into existence isn't unethical. The problem with this is that PSSH only has value because we exist. In other words, the fact we exist is the only reason we try to find meaning and purpose for our lives. If our existence is the only reason something is perceived to be of value by us, it follows that that value wouldn't be if we didn't exist. People are compelled to find PSSH only because they've been brought into existence, not because finding meaning and purpose has intrinsic value. If they don't, they'll likely spiral into depression and suicide. In other words finding PSSH is an escape from dukkha and not a venture towards something purposeful. Arguing that PSSH overrides the unethicality of non-consensual exposure to dukkha is the same as arguing that it's acceptable to non-consensually and unnecessarily put someone in the position where they have to escape from dukkha to save themselves from that dukkha. If that's choice (A) and choice (B) is to refrain from doing that, (A) is the ethical option. (Peter Wessel Zapffe frames PSSH in terms of isolation, anchoring, distraction, and sublimation in The Last Messiah.)

Following on, intrinsically valuable purpose must also be known prior to bringing someone into existence and it must be one of the reasons why a person is brought into existence. But at this point in time the best we can deduce is that we do not have PSSA. All signs point to our species being the result of blind evolutionary selection over the course of millennia. Our base purpose is to perpetuate the species until forces immensely superior to us knock us out of the game. Everything else is filler. And herein lies the execrable offence against our sense of agency and self. The torturous paradox of non-consensual being. Death row inmates sentenced to the gallows for the crime of being brought into existence. The clock is always ticking, but we never know what time it is.

Many will argue that we have PSSA because god. An example of this might run something like, "Our earthly suffering helps us mature into holiness so we can grow closer to God". But anyone wanting to insert their god into this discourse is first obliged to demonstrate that there's a supernatural, then define the term god, prove that a god matching that definition does in fact exist, and explain away all other gods encompassed by their proposed definition. Furthermore, those who profess belief in a deity/ies that banish people to everlasting torment have the added burden of squaring away why it’s okay for people to be non-consensually exposed to that horrific risk. There are other possibilities such as being created by aliens, existing within some kind of simulation or even a hologram. But, just like the god question, these are currently nothing more than unknowable hypotheses - although I suspect much more likely.

This all runs 180 degrees the opposite to any ethical principle I hold, plus a strange resentment for religious ideals not being true. I can imagine the probablity of conflict and harm far easier as a result of an alien species coming down and artificially selecting us for their own purpose. The only ethical action to my mind would be simply speeding up the option of selecting for intellegence and sharing technology with us for our own own civilizational benefit to still decide for ourselves what actions are most meaningful for us.

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SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pm - I can say the same thing for veganism which posits that it's wrong for humans to make sentient creatures exist because of the harms they'll inevitably be exposed to? How do you square that away?

That is the principled reason for why you see so many negative utilitarians & anti-natalists also being vegan, but yeah it's very much not the majority ethical reason most people are vegan.

I am curious to read your explanation for why you aren't vegan. Do you accept that you're causing more harm than eating plants, but just cite alienation from the animals on your plate and depression at having no universal meaning to life making it hard to change?

Here are the arguments for veganism from the various ethical schools of philosophy:
- Arguments for veganism
- How to simply explain what veganism is and argue for it

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brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:46 pm The wiki article has been updated to clarify the points of confusion that Steve mentioned. @NonZeroSum can you please look over it and compare it with his criticism and let me know if I missed anything?

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pm "The desire to not "expose humans to inevitable harm if it's impossible to get their consent""
- I'm not talking about a desire. I'm talking about an ethical principle.

An ad hoc one, that's the problem. How do you derive this, or is it just coming from your desire?
Ethical principles need to be substantiated by reason to carry weight, not be pulled out the the air with the only apparent motivation to come to a very specific conclusion.

1- The principle is basically derived from individual sovereignty, cf Section 6.ii.1.3 of my Defense essay on my minds blog. The principle and the individual sovereignty it's based on undergird things like due process, freedom of association, the liberty to say and think whatever you like, and whatever else you can think of that lends itself to people being able to live free and unmolested by other individuals and state actors. Describing it as "ad hoc" and "pulled out the the air with the only apparent motivation to come to a very specific conclusion" is way off base.

2- Thinking you can correctly assess someone's motivations for defending a position on the internet is vapid. What if I told you, and this is true, I dislike the conclusions I've arrived at and want to be proven wrong? But even if you were right about my motivations, it wouldn't matter. All that matters is whether or not an argument stands or falls on its own merits. If not poisoning the well, what's your motivation for disparaging me on the basis I eat meat and saying I'm motivated to reach a specific conclusion?

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:46 pm

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pmDo you disagree that "It's unethical to expose humans to inevitable harm if it's impossible to get their consent" is a good principle?

It's an absurd principle.

First, even for a hedonist it should be "Net harm", meaning harm minus pleasure.
Second, consent is not inherently relevant to hedonistic calculus -- for a hedonistic consequentialist, it is appropriate to expose people to harm as long as the pleasure is greater than the harm without consent (or even against explicit refusal).
E.g. the hedonistis consequentialist will endorse kidnapping people off the street to plug them into pleasure machines against their consent, because the pleasure outweighs the harm in kidnapping them.

This was already explained in the wiki article, but for preference based consideration consent is important, but ONLY because it clarifies people's preferences and guarantees we are acting in accordance with them. If consent can not be obtained then it is unimportant, we need only act on what the preferences probably are or would probably be.

The section that you conveniently skipped explains this in detail:
http://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/inde ... ut_Consent

It reflects poorly on character to fail to ask consent when it's easy to ask consent because that suggests that you don't care if somebody consents or not. When it's hard to ask consent or even impossible to ask consent, then this reflects little and not at all upon character and there are no ethical problems with it. Thus: "It's unethical ... if it's impossible to get their consent" is precisely wrong because the impossibility of asking consent is what exonerates the failure to do so; it is not unethical to fail to do the impossible.

1- In response to my question "Do you disagree that "It's unethical to expose humans to inevitable harm if it's impossible to get their consent" is a good principle?", you reply "It's an absurd principle".
You therefore think these 3 statements are absurd:
- It's unethical to punch someone in the face if it's impossible to get their consent;
- It's unethical to stick a blue dolphin tickler in someone if it's impossible to get their consent;
- It's unethical to prevent people from having the freedom to say and think whatever they want if it's impossible to get their consent.
Note, I don't assert the principle as axiomatic nor do I say it's inviolable. I assert it as a robust starting point that requires sufficient justification to be overridden.
This bears repeating: This principle and the individual sovereignty it's based on undergird things like due process, freedom of association, the liberty to say and think whatever you like, and whatever else you can think of that lends itself to people being able to live free. This forum wouldn't exist without it. Calling it absurd is absurd.

2- You resort to a model hedonistic consequentialist (HC) who thinks it's okay to override consent and "expose people to harm as long as the pleasure is greater than the harm". A real life HC would probably agree to exposing him/herself to harm as long as the pleasure is greater than the harm. But it doesn't automatically follow that HCs would always do that, or that they typically think overriding others' individual sovereignty is acceptable when it comes to exposing them to harm as long as the pleasure is greater than the harm. Real life doesn't play out in accordance with one dimensional worldview models. In real life people weigh up competing values. Modeling how HCs, negative utilitarians, virtue ethicists, etc would respond given a set of facts are maps purposed for demonstrating how these worldviews are applied. You're confusing these maps with real life territory.

3- You say "This was already explained in the wiki article... The section that you conveniently skipped explains this in detail", and then you link to an updated version of that section. I didn't respond to that updated version which you wrote after I wrote my essay. I responded to the archive linked in paragraph 3 of my essay. It's dishonest to accuse me of skipping something you wrote after my response.
That being said, in my essay I gave that section short shrift because the second sentence of the second paragraph stated: "It actually is typically inappropriate to do things without people's consent when they're capable of giving it". Having that as your opening gambit illustrated once again that you don't understand what's in play here (as I repeatedly highlighted throughout my essay). I didn't "conveniently skip" anything. I couldn't be bothered with everything that followed because everything that flowed downhill from that misunderstanding could be rightfully dismissed out of hand. I could still do that with your entire section on consent on the same basis. But the reason I've written this long response is because there's value in showing how the consent argument is commonly misrepresented and how the nature and machinery of consent are often misunderstood.

4- You say "If consent can not be obtained then it is unimportant, we need only act on what the preferences probably are or would probably be".
You don't understand consent. I'll say it again - you don't understand consent. Your claim that consent becomes unimportant if it can't be obtained is wrong. That isn't how it works.
Your comment can be read in 2 ways, charitably and literally.
Charitably: This could just be sloppy phrasing on your part. If so, here's how to phrase it properly: "If explicit consent can't be obtained, then we look to other types of consent such as implied or substituted. If no type of consent can be obtained you then need justifiable purpose to override its absence." At no point does it become unimportant. Its importance is confirmed by the steps required to override it.
Literally: However, if you do actually mean that consent is unimportant on the basis it can't be obtained, and that "we need only act on what the preferences probably are or would probably be", that justifies an assumption that you probably defend procreation as long we can be reasonably certain most people will say that for them being brought into existence was better than the alternative → This means you think it's okay to write off >0 people as collateral damage in the pursuit of continuing the human species if they experience intolerable harm to the point they think it would have been better if they'd never been brought into existence. I understand the "→" is a big leap and I haven't shown my working. My arguments are detailed in my "Harms & Benefits" and "Omelas" essays pinned at the top of my minds blog. I'm not rewriting them here.

5- You say "It's unethical ... if it's impossible to get their consent" is precisely wrong because the impossibility of asking consent is what exonerates the failure to do so; it is not unethical to fail to do the impossible."
I'm not arguing that failing to do the impossible is unethical. I'm arguing that exposing people to harm requires consent and the fact you can't get it in this particular situation means the exposure is wrong. Nothing I assert triggers the is/ought problem.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:46 pm

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pmYour "99.99% of all moral philosophy" is about how to live a good life.

It's not about how to be happy, it's about how to be moral. Typically being moral helps people be happy too, but that's not the point. Procreation is an important part of moral philosophy and yes 99.99% disagree with you. When you're that outnumbered, do you ever question yourself and think maybe you could be the one who is fractally wrong?

We have another member, @teo123, who thought the Earth was flat and never considered that. Now he thinks prisons don't exist, again a failure of self-reflection.

Appeal to popularity isn't *proof* of anything, but appeal to consensus within a field does help tell us what is more likely to be wrong and should help us form a healthy sense of self-doubt that keeps us clear of the Dunning Kruger effect.

1- In my original essay I proved that you shift meaning by shifting terminology. You do the same thing here. In response to my comment "Your "99.99% of all moral philosophy" is about how to live a good life", you say, "It's not about how to be happy, it's about how to be moral". I didn't say it was about how to be happy. I said it's "about how to live a good life". "Good" ≠ "happy". Your objections have zero value when you misrepresent and straw man the things you're responding to.

2- Here's another example. You say "Procreation is an important part of moral philosophy and yes 99.99% disagree with you. When you're that outnumbered, do you ever question yourself and think maybe you could be the one who is fractally wrong?"
I never said procreation isn't an important part of moral philosophy. Here's the full context:
NonZeroSum: "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,"
BrimstoneSalad: "Or 99.99% of all moral philosophy..."
SG: "Your "99.99% of all moral philosophy" is about how to live a good life. I'm discussing whether or not it's good to be made to live. If your moral philosophy doesn't have a suitable container for discussing this, then your moral philosophy is inadequate (cf Julio Cabrera's contention in his advocacy for a new radical bioethics)."

(I'm proceeding on the assumption we agree that "99.99%" isn't an empirical claim but rather just an exaggerated substitute for "typically".)

I never said procreation isn't an important part of moral philosophy. I said that moral philosophy is typically about how to live after having been made to live. It's assumed within that kind of philosophy that being made to live is something beyond discussion, accepted as an indisputable inevitability, something not even thought about, or assumed as a good that doesn't require justification, etc. My point is that "typical" philosophy isn't purposed for investigating whether or not it's good to be made to live. It's purposed for investigating how to live a good life or how to live well after we've already been made to live. This being the case I'm not outnumbered in the sense that most of philosophy thinks I'm wrong. I'm outnumbered in the sense the ethicality of being made to exist is a minor consideration in the philosophical canon. In light of the full context you're subsequent "fractal wrongness" and "Dunning Kruger" drive-bys look like confessions more than anything else.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:46 pm

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pmI'm discussing whether or not it's good to be made to live.

And that is BY FAR not a question that has been ignored in philosophy. Most of the questioning is along the lines of if we are morally obligated to produce as many happy people as possible, or if it's morally permissible to abstain from having children due to personal choice.

You're so far from what the actual discussion is it's as though most people are effective altruists debating whether we should donate most of our money to effective charities or if it's morally acceptable to spend money on ourselves, and you come along and argue that we're morally compelled to steal money from effective charities and burn it.

The real question is if we are morally compelled to have children or if it is morally permissible to be childless, not whether we are morally compelled to remain childless or if it is permissible to have children.

1- In response to me saying "I'm discussing whether or not it's good to be made to live", you say "that is BY FAR not a question that has been ignored in philosophy". In saying this you confirm exactly what I just wrote about in the immediately preceding section. I never said this question "has been ignored in philosophy". My point is, as I just stated, it has only ever been a minor consideration. Once again you shift the meaning of what I said so you can knock over a straw man.
You then give 2 examples proving conclusively you have no idea what you're talking about:
- "Most of the questioning is along the lines of if we are morally obligated to produce as many happy people as possible" - You're equivocating on the meaning of "produce". It's a common theme in philosophy to talk about producing as many happy people as possible after the fact of being brought into existence. It isn't a common theme in philosophy to talk about bringing into existence as many happy people as possible. How many examples can you point to dealing with how to produce happy people in the sense of how to procreate people who pop out happy?
- "Most of the questioning is along the lines of if it's morally permissible to abstain from having children due to personal choice" - This discussion doesn't have anything to do with abstaining from having children due to personal choice. It's about asserting a universally applicable ethical principle. Has such a principle been discussed in philosophy? Of course it has, picking up pace over the last hundred or so years. But it's a rarity when zooming out and looking at the entire canon.
Neither of your examples have anything to do with the question of whether or not it's good to be made to live. Saying I'm "so far from what the actual discussion is" reads like another confession.

2- You say "The real question is if we are morally compelled to have children or if it is morally permissible to be childless, not whether we are morally compelled to remain childless or if it is permissible to have children."
Are you attempting to dismiss the question I raise by saying it isn't the "real question"? Says who? Who exactly is the arbiter of what is the "real question"? If you don't think I'm engaging the "real question", why not start and finish with that? Saying this means you've invested a lot of time in a question you don't think matters.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:46 pm

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pm"fabricated ad hoc as a rationalization for antinatalism", "It's a very specific dogma transparently crafted to reach a specific pre-determined conclusion."
- Those are positive assertions attracting the burden of proof. I look forward to seeing you substantiate them.

All claims are positive in some sense (it's just a matter of phrasing). However, I don't think you understand how burden of proof works. Your claims look like they're straight out of bahfest https://bahfest.com/
You're the one who started with the claim of this as a basis for ethics, I responded by rejecting it as ad hoc because it's very specific to your dogma and has not been demonstrated to have any other purpose or derivation than support of antinatalism for which is it being used.

Much like a scientific study that was not pre-registered, it is the burden of those DOING the study (or making the original claim) to substantiate it with argument supporting its validity. I can not be asked to prove a negative (that your substantiation doesn't exist anywhere when you will not show it), you must prove a positive by demonstrating it.

In terms you might understand (because I don't think you know anything about pre-registration or statistical significance) it's equivalent to your math teacher telling you to show your work to prove you aren't cheating. Your response can not be to demand the teacher prove you haven't done your work on a piece of napkin that you then ate and digested -- this is what you are in effect doing here. The presumption is that you have cheated and copied your answer from another person if you will not produce your work.

The NULL HYPOTHESIS is that you pulled this out of your ass to support your preconceived dogma because that's usually the case with claims like this and it's the easiest thing to do -- it's also the claim that can be proven wrong by showing me your work. I don't have a burden of proof to support a null hypothesis or provide material evidence against your unsubstantiated and apparently unfalsifiable claim.

Only you can contradict the basis of my rejection by showing that it has been derived in some other way.

1- You say "All claims are positive in some sense (it's just a matter of phrasing). However, I don't think you understand how burden of proof works."
No. It's not "just a matter of phrasing". If you don't distinguish between positive and negative assertions, it's you who doesn't understand how burden of proof works.
Here are the positive assertions you made that attract the burden of proof: The principle that "it's unethical to expose humans to inevitable harm if it's impossible to get their consent" is
i- "fabricated ad hoc as a rationalization for antinatalism"
ii- "a very specific dogma transparently crafted to reach a specific pre-determined conclusion."
If you don't get how these assertions attract the burden of proof... I mean seriously, come on.

2- You say "You're the one who started with the claim of this as a basis for ethics, I responded by rejecting it as ad hoc because it's very specific to your dogma and has not been demonstrated to have any other purpose or derivation than support of antinatalism for which is it being used."
I'm not asserting anything as a basis for ethics (assuming you mean as a basis for all conceivable ethics). I make it crystal clear above that "I don't assert the principle as axiomatic nor do I say it's inviolable. I assert it as a robust starting point that requires sufficient justification to be overridden.".
The principle isn't ad hoc or specific to my "dogma". cf above where I explicitly demonstrate its purposes beyond the matter at hand. You're wrong. Again.

3- You say "In terms you might understand (because I don't think you know anything about pre-registration or statistical significance)..."
lmao You wot? That came out of left field. None of what we've covered so far has anything to do with pre-registration or statistical significance. Why throw this nonsense into the mix? Poisoning the well? Hoping I'll be incensed at having my qualifications challenged? You reveal a lot about yourself and your motivations inserting stuff like that.

4- "The NULL HYPOTHESIS is that you pulled this out of your ass to support your preconceived dogma".
It doesn't become true the more you say it. You know that, right?

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:46 pm

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pm- I can say the same thing for veganism which posits that it's wrong for humans to make sentient creatures exist because of the harms they'll inevitably be exposed to? How do you square that away?

I don't, because that's a straw man and not something I believe.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pm"as a meat-eater SteveGodfrey probably has no problem with that kind of rationalization"
- Really? Okay. As a vegan you probably have no problem being a self righteous hack. Is this the direction you want for our discussion?

If you want, but answer me this: DO you have a problem with that kind of rationalization? It's special pleading like that people use to reject the moral value of non-human animals and is apparently something you are doing.

The behavior of eating meat tacitly endorses the ethicality of doing so, particularly from somebody like you who contrary to much of the population has probably given it more careful consideration and is aware of simple scientific facts most people are not (like the nutritional adequacy of a well planned vegan diet, that these animals experience pain, etc.). You do not seem like somebody who would say "Oh no vegan diets have no B-12 and supplements are unnatural therefore wrong" or "God gave us animals to eat so that settles it". You're probably making a very specific ad hoc argument of the very type I'm criticizing to convince yourself that eating meat is ethical.

I could be wrong and you may be one of the people who is intellectually honest enough to accept that eating meat is unethical and admit that you are being unethical in doing it without giving yourself excuses and perhaps you're working on phasing meat out of your diet. If that's the case then I apologize. But I'm probably not wrong.

You say "DO you have a problem with that kind of rationalization?". I already explained the context of the question. Do you understand what a rhetorical question is? (See what I did there?)
As for the remainder, I'm not here to discuss veganism.


I'm going to call it a day and let this lie where it falls. We're only going to go around in circles from this point. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this on your forum and I hope it's of value to others who come across it in the future. Cheers.

@NonZeroSum Definitely, having this feedback (even critical feedback unwilling to understand the issues or change) helps a lot in fleshing out the article. If you get a chance to read the post above, can you let me know if there's anything relevant in there to clarify or expand upon in the wiki?

I'm certainly planning to do something pretty significant on negative utilitarianism, the Buddhism stuff you mentioned could be good on that page.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 am You say "DO you have a problem with that kind of rationalization?". I already explained the context of the question. Do you understand what a rhetorical question is? (See what I did there?)
As for the remainder, I'm not here to discuss veganism.

Another case of rationalization and ad hoc moral axioms would actually be very useful to explore in a Socratic way as a means of discussing epistemology of moral axioms.
Establishing a pattern, or a contradiction, in something more grounded could help shed light on your thought process here. I'm not asking for no reason, and you can bet it will come back around to your axioms for antinatalism.

Keep in mind you attempted to bring it up too:

- I can say the same thing for veganism which posits that it's wrong for humans to make sentient creatures exist because of the harms they'll inevitably be exposed to? How do you square that away?

If I did happen to believe that and it wasn't a strawman that would be an insightful line of questioning.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 am

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:46 pm

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:44 pm "The desire to not "expose humans to inevitable harm if it's impossible to get their consent""
- I'm not talking about a desire. I'm talking about an ethical principle.

An ad hoc one, that's the problem. How do you derive this, or is it just coming from your desire?
Ethical principles need to be substantiated by reason to carry weight, not be pulled out the the air with the only apparent motivation to come to a very specific conclusion.

1- The principle is basically derived from individual sovereignty, cf Section 6.ii.1.3 of my Defense essay on my minds blog. The principle and the individual sovereignty it's based on undergird things like due process, freedom of association, the liberty to say and think whatever you like, and whatever else you can think of that lends itself to people being able to live free and unmolested by other individuals and state actors. Describing it as "ad hoc" and "pulled out the the air with the only apparent motivation to come to a very specific conclusion" is way off base.

Individual sovereignty applies to extant individuals, not non-individuals. Using your own reasoning that doesn't work (in the same way consent supposedly doesn't work with non-persons, anybody remember that?). It really sounds like you're trying to come up with derivations after the fact here, or else it's hard to make sense of you not noticing that kind of inconsistency. Try again.

Also :

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amThe principle and the individual sovereignty it's based on undergird things like due process, freedom of association, the liberty to say and think whatever you like, and whatever else you can think of that lends itself to people being able to live free and unmolested by other individuals and state actors.

In order for people to live free and unmolested they must first come into existence. Arguably giving birth to the next generation is an essential obligation to repay the debt you owe for your own birth -- it's one of those things that is essential to a free society because it starts with there being a society to begin with.

You're appealing to a kind of consequentialist reasoning, but you want to destroy the very thing those principles exist to protect (and arguably perpetuate).
None of what you believe follows from this kind of individual sovereignty, quite the contrary the opposite can be more convincingly argued:

1. The not yet person is not an individual yet so does not yet have sovereignty (thus not a prohibition).
2. Giving birth to the next generation is essential to the ends of a free society which can't exist without a population (thus an obligation).

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 am2- Thinking you can correctly assess someone's motivations for defending a position on the internet is vapid.

Have you ever heard "pics or it didn't happen"?
Assertions of very peculiarly constructed moral axioms are highly dubious.
It's the Canadian girlfriend you wouldn't know her, no we can't call her now because she only calls me she has to use a payphone, sorry she made me promise not to show anybody her picture but she's really hot I swear.

The *complexity* of the axiom you had to create with all of its moving parts to arrive at this conclusion is what is particularly perplexing if the process didn't start with the conclusion.
Are you *sure* you have not fine-tuned this axiom over time?

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amWhat if I told you, and this is true, I dislike the conclusions I've arrived at and want to be proven wrong?

I would wonder why you have put so much work into advancing conclusions you dislike, and wonder if there may now still be inescapable ego investment into admitting you have been wrong.
To dislike ones conclusions is a fairly common claim among philosophical pessimists, and yet even those extremely transparently bad arguments like Benatar's asymmetry find themselves bizarrely immovable.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amIf not poisoning the well, what's your motivation for disparaging me on the basis I eat meat and saying I'm motivated to reach a specific conclusion?

Virtually nobody online is motivated to be proven wrong, but as to the particular axiom see above. As to the carnism, like @NonZeroSum I'm interested in your thought process there and whether you have an equally convoluted axiom that permits torturing and killing animals for taste as morally benign.

I think if you engaged with that point you might learn a little about how moral axioms can fail.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 am- It's unethical to punch someone in the face if it's impossible to get their consent;

Yes, that is an absurd statement; the impossibility of consent has nothing to do with it. The "IF" part is absurd. The question is whether it's in that person's interests or not and that's not causally connected to the possibility or impossibility of obtaining consent.

Most of the time it's not going to be ethical because it will hurt and the person won't get anything out of it.
If somebody bet you a million dollars you wouldn't punch a random person in the face out of the blue and your intent was to split it, it would very likely be in that person's interest that you do so -- and any effort to get consent would violate the terms of the bet.

What would be unethical in terms of reflecting poorly upon the actor would be failing to ask for consent when it *is* possible and even easy to do so. That would suggest the actor wants to do it regardless of whether it's in the person's interests or not.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 am- It's unethical to prevent people from having the freedom to say and think whatever they want if it's impossible to get their consent.

It's quite ethical to do that even against their consent (of course they don't consent since it goes against what they are defined as wanting) if that speech is harmful to others. You don't need somebody's consent for it to be ethical to stop that person from yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amNote, I don't assert the principle as axiomatic nor do I say it's inviolable. I assert it as a robust starting point that requires sufficient justification to be overridden.

Those statements lack that qualification, which aside from the pointless "IF" (which absurdly claims that impossibility of consent is morally relevant) makes them absurd.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 am 2- You resort to a model hedonistic consequentialist (HC) who thinks it's okay to override consent and "expose people to harm as long as the pleasure is greater than the harm". A real life HC would probably agree to exposing him/herself to harm as long as the pleasure is greater than the harm. But it doesn't automatically follow that HCs would always do that,

You're making a pretty basic mistake here.

The HC may not be aware that pleasure is greater than harm or that harm is greater than pleasure in something being attempted and foiled (such as the poisoned cookie slapped away). None the less the HC considers it a GOOD thing for people to intervene when the facts of outcome are favorable, including without consent.

If the supposed HC doesn't agree with that (it being good), then that person is not an HC. Using a thought experiment like this is actually a very good way to demonstrate to people who claim to be HC that they are not in actual fact HC.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amReal life doesn't play out in accordance with one dimensional worldview models. In real life people weigh up competing values.

The HC may admit to behaving irrationally, but that's irrelevant to the HC's belief that it's the right thing to do: thus your mistake.

E.g. if you present a thought experiment where the HC is hungry and you feed the HC (unknowingly to the HC) feces contaminated food (which has been sterilized) alleviating that hunger, the HC must concede that this is a good thing even if he or she would not want to unknowingly eat feces (even sterile feces) due to irrational disgust.

There's not necessarily a contradiction between the HC not wanting to be unknowingly fed feces and the HC admitting it is good to unknowingly feed him or her feces. That's the whole reason they're HCs, they think what's good for people is not always what people want (including themselves).

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amYou're confusing these maps with real life territory.

I am not. However, this is something people often do (including something you have done here) because it's difficult for people to make the distinction between wanted and good in those models where they are distinct. There's a good reason why this is a difficult distinction to make: it's an absurd one. I'm not a Hedonistic Consequentialist.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 am3- You say "This was already explained in the wiki article... The section that you conveniently skipped explains this in detail", and then you link to an updated version of that section.

That section was barely edited since your article and nothing of substance was changed as far as I know. The issue was that you skipped it originally. You are welcome to respond to an earlier version of it if you want to. NonZeroSum included the section you skipped in his composited post here:
viewtopic.php?p=48914#p48914

This was your only response:

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.

You failed to respond to the entire section because you thought you identified some kind of Freudian slip in the wording of one of the first sentences in the section. I don't think the wording there was a problem but I clarified it for you because you took issue with it. It did not change the meaning from my perspective.
The entire section remains relevant, however, and it remains relevant that you still skipped it.

It's very convenient, as I said, for you to skip the section because it addressed the issue of consent and its moral relevance -- something you are apparently unable to contend with.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amI didn't respond to that updated version which you wrote after I wrote my essay.

Incorrect, the section was already there and already contained the relevant content I'm talking about and you skipped it.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amI responded to the archive linked in paragraph 3 of my essay.

No you didn't, you dismissed it without any real argument based on one sentence and you skipped the rest which contained the substance of the argument.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amIt's dishonest to accuse me of skipping something you wrote after my response.

It's dishonest for you to pretend it wasn't already there, and it was dishonest of you to skip it because it was and remains the most crucial element of the argument.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amThat being said, in my essay I gave that section short shrift because the second sentence of the second paragraph stated: "It actually is typically inappropriate to do things without people's consent when they're capable of giving it".

I'm speaking to the general issue of the moral relevance of consent.
You are welcome to respond to the original or updated version.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amHaving that as your opening gambit illustrated once again that you don't understand what's in play here (as I repeatedly highlighted throughout my essay).

I explained why your essay didn't do anything, it was a semantic nitpick at best focusing on something you're reading into the wording. I clarified the wording and I'm sure that was helpful for antinatalists reading it in the future.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amI couldn't be bothered with everything that followed because everything that flowed downhill from that misunderstanding could be rightfully dismissed out of hand.

Like I said, dishonest. It's irrelevant to the specific wording of the first sentence.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 am4- You say "If consent can not be obtained then it is unimportant, we need only act on what the preferences probably are or would probably be".
You don't understand consent. I'll say it again - you don't understand consent. Your claim that consent becomes unimportant if it can't be obtained is wrong. That isn't how it works.

You don't understand consent in the context of morality because you don't understand morality; that is the lens through which the relevance of consent is being assessed.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amLiterally: However, if you do actually mean that consent is unimportant on the basis it can't be obtained, and that "we need only act on what the preferences probably are or would probably be", that justifies an assumption that you probably defend procreation as long we can be reasonably certain most people will say that for them being brought into existence was better than the alternative

Again you fail math. It's not simply most.

If 51% of people experience 1 net pleasure point (net as in after subtracting pain) and 49% of people experience -2 net pleasure then that does not argue in favor of procreation.
Net pleasure in aggregate must be higher than pain, or must be reasonably expected to be higher than pain in the future to pay off that investment.

This has been explained clearly with regards to the empirical contingency.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 am→ This means you think it's okay to write off >0 people as collateral damage in the pursuit of continuing the human species if they experience intolerable harm to the point they think it would have been better if they'd never been brought into existence.

The way you phrased this is just some dishonest rhetoric: "okay" "write off" "collateral damage" implies indifference -- yes it is an exchange, that doesn't mean the bad doesn't matter or that we don't care about it as that wording implies, but that the good was still worth the bad IF the bad was unavoidable to achieve the good. We can and should work on reducing harm and any case like that is unfortunate, but that doesn't mean throwing out all of the good is right.

If you're talking about "the ends justify the means" this isn't some incredible discovery of hidden knowledge. Was this not made abundantly clear in the article? This is the very basis of consequentialism: Depending on magnitude, good things can outweigh bad things, bad things can outweigh good things, or they can be a wash. This is discussed in much more detail in the Benatar's asymmetry section (I suggest you read the entire article).

We engage in these exchanges constantly in life, accepting consequences to get things we want. Sometimes it hurts your fingers breaking open a tough pistachio, but you do it because the pistachio was worth it. We invest money (a loss) to earn more in exchange and we take risks for potentially greater reward. Consequentialism in the broader sense is only consistent with how cognition works on the smaller scale.

If you have intuitions that disagree with this, your intuitions are simply wrong (as intuition unsurprisingly often is). It's particularly true with large numbers, where people will often be more concerned with the death of one person where the death of thousands just becomes a meaningless number.

This has been pretty extensively written on and researched, for example:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... don-t-care

Intuition is a pretty terrible way to explore moral philosophy because it results in highly inconsistent conclusions both for a single person and between people -- "intuitive" morality results only in inconsistency and subjectivity which makes morality useless. Deductive reason is a much better approach to morality which yields something consistent and useful.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 am5- You say "It's unethical ... if it's impossible to get their consent" is precisely wrong because the impossibility of asking consent is what exonerates the failure to do so; it is not unethical to fail to do the impossible."
I'm not arguing that failing to do the impossible is unethical.

You aren't arguing that failing to do any arbitrary impossible thing is unethical (nor am I claiming you are). You are arguing that failure to do a particular impossible thing here is unethical -- you are arguing then that it being impossible doesn't change that obligation which is precisely wrong.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amI'm arguing that exposing people to harm requires consent

You are wrong about that. Exposing other sentient beings on aggregate to net harm to their interests is wrong, consent is irrelevant. Even WITH consent it remains wrong; people can consent to things that go against their interests and harm them.

Consent is merely one of many ways of estimating others' interests. Failing to use all of the tools at our disposal to determine if an action is in somebody's interests is a moral failing.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amand the fact you can't get it in this particular situation means the exposure is wrong.

Again incorrect. Consent wasn't essential to begin with, it was only a tool for assessing probable interests -- one among many.

Now you would have a more interesting argument if you addressed a hypothetical total lack of tools for assessing the probability of net harm/benefit.
For example, if we consider the possibility of creating an advanced synthetic general intelligence and we don't have any idea if it will be happy or suffer profoundly -- we can not ask it, we can not ask any other synthetic intelligences which are similar (because there are none), it has not evolved in any Darwinian sense that would let us assume it's psychologically suited to its natural environment, etc.

I can't say I would agree with such an argument (although I tend to agree with the conclusion that we probably shouldn't create such SI), but it would be an interesting argument and I could imagine it being compelling.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 am1- In my original essay I proved that you shift meaning by shifting terminology.

You're very quick to congratulate yourself on an imagined accomplishment. See the updated article which uses more clear wording while making the same arguments and shows there were no relevant shifts in meaning.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amIn response to my comment "Your "99.99% of all moral philosophy" is about how to live a good life", you say, "It's not about how to be happy, it's about how to be moral". I didn't say it was about how to be happy. I said it's "about how to live a good life". "Good" ≠ "happy". Your objections have zero value when you misrepresent and straw man the things you're responding to.

Your wording was unclear, it's fine to clarify. "living the good life" is typically about hedonistic pleasure, it sounded like you were referring to something like that. If that's not what you meant that's fine.

It's very funny how you're complaining about me straw-manning your comments when I'm happy to accept a clarification of your wording and yet you stubbornly insist you've discovered some intentional shift in meaning on my part to create an invalid argument and won't consider my clarifications or even read the substantive argument that follows. Quite a dishonest double standard.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 am2- Here's another example. You say "Procreation is an important part of moral philosophy and yes 99.99% disagree with you. When you're that outnumbered, do you ever question yourself and think maybe you could be the one who is fractally wrong?"
I never said procreation isn't an important part of moral philosophy.

You rather implied procreation isn't an important part of moral philosophy, but principally I'm saying your conclusions are at odds with the overwhelming majority. Antinatalism is a very small minority.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amHere's the full context:
NonZeroSum: "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,"
BrimstoneSalad: "Or 99.99% of all moral philosophy..."
SG: "Your "99.99% of all moral philosophy" is about how to live a good life. I'm discussing whether or not it's good to be made to live. If your moral philosophy doesn't have a suitable container for discussing this, then your moral philosophy is inadequate (cf Julio Cabrera's contention in his advocacy for a new radical bioethics)."

P1: All aspects of moral living are covered in moral philosophy.
P2: Procreation is an aspect of moral living.
C: Procreation is covered in moral philosophy.

P1. Procreation is covered in moral philosophy.
P2. Procreation is one being made to live.
C: Being made to live is covered in moral philosophy.

Moral philosophers aren't unaware or missing the concepts of antinatalism; those concepts and arguments are just so obviously false that they're easily covered and dismissed to get at more interesting and actually controversial philosophical topics.
Philosophers don't want to argue with antinatalists for the same reason physicists don't want to argue with flat-earthers and biologists don't want to argue with creationists. It's so obviously wrong that it doesn't make an interesting topic for anybody who has actually thought about and studied these things. Now I'm not saying that reluctance to discuss these issues is a virtue -- it's precisely why these absurd and even harmful ideals find such fertile ground on the internet and in subcultures.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amIt's assumed within that kind of philosophy that being made to live is something beyond discussion, accepted as an indisputable inevitability, something not even thought about, or assumed as a good that doesn't require justification, etc.

Again, having children is a big part of things, and no, the arguments for antinatalism are just so transparently asinine that they aren't interesting discussions.
It's like saying "Flat-Earth is a forbidden topic in physics!", which you'll find a lot of in Flat-Earth circles. Everybody with these fringe pseudoscience or pseudophilosophical ideas wants to spread the narrative of their censorship in mainstream study. The persecution complex is not something with evidence behind it.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amYou then give 2 examples proving conclusively you have no idea what you're talking about:
- "Most of the questioning is along the lines of if we are morally obligated to produce as many happy people as possible" - You're equivocating on the meaning of "produce". It's a common theme in philosophy to talk about producing as many happy people as possible after the fact of being brought into existence. It isn't a common theme in philosophy to talk about bringing into existence as many happy people as possible.

I'm not equivocating, that's literally the issue -- bringing as many people into existence as possible in order that we maximize the happy population of the Earth.
That you aren't aware of that or think it has to do only with making extant people happy demonstrates how woefully ignorant you are of these issues.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amHow many examples can you point to dealing with how to produce happy people in the sense of how to procreate people who pop out happy?

See “the mere addition paradox”, a major philosophical topic which deals with whether we should procreate to fill the world with as many somewhat happy people as possible vs. a much lower population with individuals who are very happy if the net happiness is greater in the former case. Issues grappled with in those discussions are often similar to what antinatalists are arguing regarding the lack of desire to exist for non-existent people. Philosophers have been trying for decades to justify a world with a smaller number of very happy people and argue away the obligation to procreate and fill the world as much as possible (to the point of not just diminishing but negative returns).

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 am - "Most of the questioning is along the lines of if it's morally permissible to abstain from having children due to personal choice" - This discussion doesn't have anything to do with abstaining from having children due to personal choice.

You misunderstand completely my point. See above.

It's like how theists want to have the debate titled: "Does god definitely exist or is it possible that he doesn't exist"
While the real debate is: "Does god definitely not exist or is it possible that it exists?"

The point is the absurdity of the antinatalist position when the only serious debate is between whether having children is optional or a moral obligation.
It's not that antinatalist issues are not understood, it's that the contention is not about whether having children is wrong or not but in the exact opposite direction. Similar arguments to antinatalists are made by proponents of the "having children is optional" position.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amIt's about asserting a universally applicable ethical principle. Has such a principle been discussed in philosophy? Of course it has, picking up pace over the last hundred or so years. But it's a rarity when zooming out and looking at the entire canon.

Discussion of those principles has to do with the application of details and argument over "paradoxes" like the one I mentioned. That's where the argument is. Philosophy is about argument, not just assertions.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amAre you attempting to dismiss the question I raise by saying it isn't the "real question"?

I'm explaining the likely cause of your false perception that philosophers aren't grapping with these issues.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amSaying this means you've invested a lot of time in a question you don't think matters.

Globally it's insignificant, but unfortunately it's a common fallacy in the vegan community so we're addressing it in an article.

All of this stuff about you not understanding how burden of proof works is pretty off topic, though. Like I said, it's the null hypothesis, like "pics or it didn't happen". The null hypothesis doesn't have the burden of proof. I don't have to prove your Canadian girlfriend is made up.
Probably not relevant to the article or the general antinatalist fallacies I'm addressing. We're already going into how you think your axiom is derived.

SteveGodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 12:16 amNone of what we've covered so far has anything to do with pre-registration or statistical significance.

If you're actually curious, again that has to do with the null hypothesis -- which is basically that researchers can't be trusted and are fixing their hypotheses for results if not pre-registered. If you did know something about those you'd understand what I was getting at.
If you sincerely want to discuss the issues around burden of proof and null hypothesis, please start another thread and we can go into it in more depth.

This philosophy sums up my attitude toward procreation entirely. Don't do it! I'm not interested in debating something which to me is unquestionable. Antinatalism and veganism complement one another perfectly (unfortunately I haven't managed to transition to veganism yet).

Even before I read David Benatar's book on the subject I was always an unconscious antinatalist but tempered this by supporting population planning instead. Antinatalism is an extension of this and I've never heard a convincing argument against antinatalism, just like I've never heard a credible argument from theists on why a so-called benevolent god would allow pain of any form to exist. So long as women are the progenitors of the species however, I can't see antinatalism ever catching on.

Also I remember enthusiastically reading about the Church of Euthanasia as a teenager in the late nineties. This was before my views on euthanasia and directed omnicide fully crystalized and matured.

Kwashiorkor wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:45 pm This philosophy sums up my attitude toward procreation entirely. Don't do it! I'm not interested in debating something which to me is unquestionable. Antinatalism and veganism complement one another perfectly (unfortunately I haven't managed to transition to veganism yet).

Claims like these are in violation of forum rules: "I'm going to make these assertions but then claim they're unquestionable"
This is a philosophical discussion forum, dogmatists (which you proclaimed yourself as) who want o go around making claims but refuse to engage in actual philosophical discussion of those claims are unwelcome.

The only thing that goes without question is logic, and that's because you can't have a coherent discussion without it.

Aside from that point you also appear to harbor some extremely sexist and racist beliefs. We're not sure if you're trolling or not given how ostentatious you're being, which is unlikely of a genuine racist/sexist. You're probably trolling, but trolling itself isn't against the rules (what else is a devil's advocate?). However, suffice it to say that nobody *wants* to discuss with you the only kinds of racist claims you seem to want to have discussions on. We're loathe to ban anybody who is making posts because the forum isn't very active, but this is pretty much the definition of undesirable activity if there is any. I recommend taking on another less racist/sexist persona who believes in reptilians or something.

You have been warned as such (a first and final warning, which is rare). Read the forum rules, and don't slip up again: http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2115