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Anti-natalism is a belief that natural selection inevitably selects against, and thus a compassionate person who recognizes the truth of the utilitarian calculu

by nwah1 9y ago

Anti-natalism is a belief that natural selection inevitably selects against, and thus a compassionate person who recognizes the truth of the utilitarian calculus of someone like Benatar would recognize a few things. 1) There is zero chance of convincing everyone to voluntarily cease reproduction 2) Those who you convince on the grounds of compassion to cease reproduction, are, by this very decision, proving themselves as among the best suited to be parents... thus the only goal that is achieved is that the quality of parents is diminished. Given that, the true goals of anti-natalism could only be achieved through the involuntary destruction of the human race... supervillain territory. Yet, given the likelihood that natural selection would end up restarting the process, even if destruction were achieved, it seems that perhaps a better approach for someone with this goal system would be to play the game of civilization, see how far our powers can take us, and how much of this universe or multiverse we can reorganize according to our values... And one of those values could be the prevention of new cascades of natural selection leading to uncontrolled consciousness with the capacity for suffering.

humanrebar 9y ago
> Those who you convince on the grounds of compassion to cease reproduction... Compassion is an emotion, not rational "grounds" for a decision. > ...the best suited to be parents... Or they just live in a particularly unsuitable environment. Which brings up a good point. The case for "nobody should have children" is a particularly hard one to make because it presumes that there is no good life for any human ever. A more middle ground would be "there is no good life for some, but there is at least arguably good life for others". So what does "no good life" look like? Who has it "worst"? Should we say sub-Saharan Africans should stop having kids? Lower caste Indians? Palestinians? Jews in early 20th century Germany? Isn't much of the middle ground between the status quo and "supervillain territory" fairly close to outright racism and genocidal propaganda?
- nwah1 9y ago
  Rationality is the logical and empirical pursuit of a value system. The values are the axioms. "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them" - David Hume
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    Good reason spans generations, cultures, and languages. Passions don't age or translate nearly as well. Hume's formulation treats reason as a phenomenon existing entirely inside of a mind and subject to individual passions.
- hashkb 9y ago
  Benatar says the bad outweighs the good for everyone. If you're refuting his first principle, are you really even talking about the same issue?
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > If you're refuting his first principle, are you really even talking about the same issue? To apply his theory to his own ideas, if they lead to or even support suffering (infanticide, racism, genocide, supervillainy), wouldn't his memes also be better off stillborn? In that way, I'm making a meta-critique. So it's "talking about the same issue", yeah. Assuming the issue is "what do you think of these ideas?"
    - hashkb 9y ago
      You're just being inflammatory and clever. Benatar would be appalled if his ideas were used to justify eugenics.
      - humanrebar 9y ago
        No. I just think life is intrinsically good and think there are philosophical consequences as ideas deviate from that axiom. Besides, even if I were a troll (I am not) and Benatar were appalled (I presume he would be), neither fact addresses my point.
- chesimov 9y ago
  I read it differently - that is, even those living the best life by modern standards still suffer enormously. We age, we must deal with biological drives, we must deal with the loss of loved ones. The best we can do (since we didn't ask to be brought into existence) is to try to strive for a better world for those who are also alive and those who will inevitably be born in the future.
- nwah1 9y ago
  >Isn't much of the middle ground between the status quo and "supervillain territory" fairly close to outright racism and genocidal propaganda? In effect, yes. A true "negative utilitarian" fully accepts even the "pinprick argument" whereby a paradise would not be worth creating even if it only required one person suffering a single pinprick. But value systems, in theory, could exist somewhere in the middle. The only difference between this and historical genocides it that, because of its motivation, it would be attempted as painlessly as possible. I once heard an interesting utilitarian argument that genocide is not worse than a random mass murder of an equivalent body count. Random mass murder may actually be worse because it leaves a lot more grieving survivors, whereas genocide kills much of the people who would be grieving. Utilitarianism does bump up strongly against human moral intuitions, but we already know this from lots of thought experiments: utility monsters, the repugnant conclusion, trolley problems, the pinprick argument, etc.
chesimov 9y ago
This seems the best refutation I've read here so far - to strive for a Culture-esque utopia. And yet as a personal decision, in the world we live in right now, how do we justify creating another life to ourselves?

by nwah1 9y ago

humanrebar 9y ago

> Those who you convince on the grounds of compassion to cease reproduction... Compassion is an emotion, not rational "grounds" for a decision. > ...the best suited to be parents... Or they just live in a particularly unsuitable environment. Which brings up a good point. The case for "nobody should have children" is a particularly hard one to make because it presumes that there is no good life for any human ever. A more middle ground would be "there is no good life for some, but there is at least arguably good life for others". So what does "no good life" look like? Who has it "worst"? Should we say sub-Saharan Africans should stop having kids? Lower caste Indians? Palestinians? Jews in early 20th century Germany? Isn't much of the middle ground between the status quo and "supervillain territory" fairly close to outright racism and genocidal propaganda?

nwah1 9y ago
Rationality is the logical and empirical pursuit of a value system. The values are the axioms. "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them" - David Hume
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Good reason spans generations, cultures, and languages. Passions don't age or translate nearly as well. Hume's formulation treats reason as a phenomenon existing entirely inside of a mind and subject to individual passions.
hashkb 9y ago
Benatar says the bad outweighs the good for everyone. If you're refuting his first principle, are you really even talking about the same issue?
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > If you're refuting his first principle, are you really even talking about the same issue? To apply his theory to his own ideas, if they lead to or even support suffering (infanticide, racism, genocide, supervillainy), wouldn't his memes also be better off stillborn? In that way, I'm making a meta-critique. So it's "talking about the same issue", yeah. Assuming the issue is "what do you think of these ideas?"
  - hashkb 9y ago
    You're just being inflammatory and clever. Benatar would be appalled if his ideas were used to justify eugenics.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      No. I just think life is intrinsically good and think there are philosophical consequences as ideas deviate from that axiom. Besides, even if I were a troll (I am not) and Benatar were appalled (I presume he would be), neither fact addresses my point.
chesimov 9y ago
I read it differently - that is, even those living the best life by modern standards still suffer enormously. We age, we must deal with biological drives, we must deal with the loss of loved ones. The best we can do (since we didn't ask to be brought into existence) is to try to strive for a better world for those who are also alive and those who will inevitably be born in the future.
nwah1 9y ago
>Isn't much of the middle ground between the status quo and "supervillain territory" fairly close to outright racism and genocidal propaganda? In effect, yes. A true "negative utilitarian" fully accepts even the "pinprick argument" whereby a paradise would not be worth creating even if it only required one person suffering a single pinprick. But value systems, in theory, could exist somewhere in the middle. The only difference between this and historical genocides it that, because of its motivation, it would be attempted as painlessly as possible. I once heard an interesting utilitarian argument that genocide is not worse than a random mass murder of an equivalent body count. Random mass murder may actually be worse because it leaves a lot more grieving survivors, whereas genocide kills much of the people who would be grieving. Utilitarianism does bump up strongly against human moral intuitions, but we already know this from lots of thought experiments: utility monsters, the repugnant conclusion, trolley problems, the pinprick argument, etc.

chesimov 9y ago

This seems the best refutation I've read here so far - to strive for a Culture-esque utopia. And yet as a personal decision, in the world we live in right now, how do we justify creating another life to ourselves?