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This is a well established philosophical concept referred as Kant universality laws. It is a good rule to live by. Makes it obvious that cutting in line is immo

This is a well established philosophical concept referred as Kant universality laws. It is a good rule to live by. Makes it obvious that cutting in line is immoral because lines could not exist if everybody did it.

maximus-decimus 5y ago
Then at the same time, is it immoral for me to have no kids because it means the extinction of the human race? Is it immoral for me to have 3 kids because it means exponential growth, overpopulation, famine and destruction of the Earth? If we follow the logic to its end, the only moral choice is for everyone to have not 1, not 3 but exactly 2 kids. I feel like this "law" really fails to account that not everybody on Earth is the same person and won't do the same thing because they either don't want to or can't. Not everybody will want to use an emulator (because they want to play online, have a deckable console, or whatever other reason) or be able to get one (because they don't have a powerful enough pc). And people using emulators might make additional publicity that might bring new consumers to Nintendo products.
- fastball 5y ago
  Not sure it would necessarily be "wrong" for the human race to cease to exist if everyone in the human race didn't want to procreate. But also remember that this is about human choices, not forced realities. The thought experiment is about what happens if everyone chooses to act in a certain way, not if everyone is a literal copy/paste automaton. To illustrate, even if everyone decided they didn't want kids, assuredly thousands/millions would still have "whoopsie" babies. With regards to choosing to have three kids: overpopulation, famine, and destruction of Earth are not a given. Firstly (and again) because nowhere close to everyone on Earth is actually able to have three kids for a variety of reasons, and secondly because even if you did have exponential population growth you can avoid those things, mostly by colonizing space / building vertically / Dyson Sphere / etc. Unlikely but not a given so therefore hard to argue its necessarily bad.
- drdeca 5y ago
  I think the idea is "If everyone determined their actions as a function of the combination of their circumstances with their idiosyncratic wants, using the same function", where said function is assumed to be natural and not like, weirdly skewed around one particular person's wants. So, like, if John really dislikes Joe, the rule saying "if you really dislike someone, punch Joe in the face" wouldn't be a rule of the appropriate sense. It doesn't make sense that if Steve really disliked Erwin, that he would punch Joe in the face as a result. The rule that John should be considering whether he would approve of, is closer to[1] the rule "If you really dislike someone, punch them in the face." . Presumably John would find this rule less appealing than "If you really dislike someone, punch Joe in the face.", because someone might dislike John and therefore punch John in the face, and John would rather not be punched in the face. So, in the case you gave an example of, about "whether to have children", the question would be along the lines of, "If everyone decided whether to have children (as well as how many) using the same criteria that you are using (where these criteria could include their personal tastes, aspirations, etc. as a factor), would you approve of the outcome?" This seems quite compatible with the ways that people differ. Like, it isn't about assuming everyone behaves in the same way, but about assuming everyone responds to their desires and motivations in "the same way", for the right sense of "the same way". [1] I won't say that this is exactly the right rule to consider. idk. Probably not quite.
- Razengan 5y ago
  Why 2? Why not just 1? Also, leave it to HN to take some news about video game emulation to a discussion about antinatalism, haha
  - Brian_K_White 5y ago
    Because we don't reproduce by budding. Also it would be 2.something not 2 exactly, because some number of people die from various causes before reproducing.
    - Razengan 5y ago
      I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. Why the emphasis on having 2 children instead of 1?
      - inawarminister 5y ago
        Because you need 2 children to replace their 2 parents in an assumed one husband one wife household. Of course, due to mortality we actually need more than 2. Around 2.1 - 2.4 for most developed nations IIRC. And this doesn't hold if the household have more than one wives, say.
        Brian_K_White 5y ago
        To be clear, I don't care about or make assumptions about relationship or family structures. Even if every human were single and babies were made in sperm banks and creches, and every human was assigned one baby from the pool to raise, you still "have" 2 kids, in the sense that you took part in the creation of 2 kids. I don't know how this needs to be explained to any human?
        Razengan 5y ago
        Are you suggesting that the 2 children mate with each other?
        5y ago
- lmm 5y ago
  > is it immoral for me to have no kids because it means the extinction of the human race? Yes! > Is it immoral for me to have 3 kids because it means exponential growth, overpopulation, famine and destruction of the Earth? If we follow the logic to its end, the only moral choice is for everyone to have not 1, not 3 but exactly 2 kids. Limiting to 2 would cause the extinction of the human race. Some people should have 3 so that we get a sustainable level of population growth - especially people in countries where the population is declining. (I'm not anti-emulator, I'm not even a huge fan of the categorical imperative, but this is an astonishingly weak counterargument)
  - ylyn 5y ago
    >> is it immoral for me to have no kids because it means the extinction of the human race? > Yes! This is a flawed rule then.
    - lmm 5y ago
      That's what selfish people tend to say about moral principles they don't want to follow :P.
    - jpambrun 5y ago
      The birth rate of 1.5 children per women in Canada for example is unsustainable. Having it less than 2.0 means a lot of people are not pulling their weight in society. While there are other factors, not having children is immoral. For one, who will take care of you once you are no longer active? Our system relies on the next generation tax to pay services to elderly.
      - int_19h 5y ago
        If the system requires forcing people to give birth, it's the system that is immoral.
- Tetilio 5y ago
  This is a weird use of the law. There is no moral implication that you need to create kids. There is also a number you can orientate yourself if you like to achieve a certain outcome Nonetheless are you aware that Nintendo had quite bad numbers on and off? It could have broken Nintendo.
namlem 5y ago
It's not just in deontology either. It's also fundamental to rule utilitarianism.
bananamerica 5y ago
I'm pretty sure ethics advanced at least a little since 18th century.
icedistilled 5y ago
My twist on Kant's universality law is to add a "how many golf balls fit into a 747" guestimate. Yes I think some people would cherry pick skewed numbers to justify whatever action they want, but doing it with good faith estimates is pretty helpful. Usually the answer is don't do that.

maximus-decimus 5y ago

Then at the same time, is it immoral for me to have no kids because it means the extinction of the human race? Is it immoral for me to have 3 kids because it means exponential growth, overpopulation, famine and destruction of the Earth? If we follow the logic to its end, the only moral choice is for everyone to have not 1, not 3 but exactly 2 kids. I feel like this "law" really fails to account that not everybody on Earth is the same person and won't do the same thing because they either don't want to or can't. Not everybody will want to use an emulator (because they want to play online, have a deckable console, or whatever other reason) or be able to get one (because they don't have a powerful enough pc). And people using emulators might make additional publicity that might bring new consumers to Nintendo products.

fastball 5y ago
Not sure it would necessarily be "wrong" for the human race to cease to exist if everyone in the human race didn't want to procreate. But also remember that this is about human choices, not forced realities. The thought experiment is about what happens if everyone chooses to act in a certain way, not if everyone is a literal copy/paste automaton. To illustrate, even if everyone decided they didn't want kids, assuredly thousands/millions would still have "whoopsie" babies. With regards to choosing to have three kids: overpopulation, famine, and destruction of Earth are not a given. Firstly (and again) because nowhere close to everyone on Earth is actually able to have three kids for a variety of reasons, and secondly because even if you did have exponential population growth you can avoid those things, mostly by colonizing space / building vertically / Dyson Sphere / etc. Unlikely but not a given so therefore hard to argue its necessarily bad.
drdeca 5y ago
I think the idea is "If everyone determined their actions as a function of the combination of their circumstances with their idiosyncratic wants, using the same function", where said function is assumed to be natural and not like, weirdly skewed around one particular person's wants. So, like, if John really dislikes Joe, the rule saying "if you really dislike someone, punch Joe in the face" wouldn't be a rule of the appropriate sense. It doesn't make sense that if Steve really disliked Erwin, that he would punch Joe in the face as a result. The rule that John should be considering whether he would approve of, is closer to[1] the rule "If you really dislike someone, punch them in the face." . Presumably John would find this rule less appealing than "If you really dislike someone, punch Joe in the face.", because someone might dislike John and therefore punch John in the face, and John would rather not be punched in the face. So, in the case you gave an example of, about "whether to have children", the question would be along the lines of, "If everyone decided whether to have children (as well as how many) using the same criteria that you are using (where these criteria could include their personal tastes, aspirations, etc. as a factor), would you approve of the outcome?" This seems quite compatible with the ways that people differ. Like, it isn't about assuming everyone behaves in the same way, but about assuming everyone responds to their desires and motivations in "the same way", for the right sense of "the same way". [1] I won't say that this is exactly the right rule to consider. idk. Probably not quite.
Razengan 5y ago
Why 2? Why not just 1? Also, leave it to HN to take some news about video game emulation to a discussion about antinatalism, haha
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  Because we don't reproduce by budding. Also it would be 2.something not 2 exactly, because some number of people die from various causes before reproducing.
  - Razengan 5y ago
    I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. Why the emphasis on having 2 children instead of 1?
    - inawarminister 5y ago
      Because you need 2 children to replace their 2 parents in an assumed one husband one wife household. Of course, due to mortality we actually need more than 2. Around 2.1 - 2.4 for most developed nations IIRC. And this doesn't hold if the household have more than one wives, say.
      - Brian_K_White 5y ago
        To be clear, I don't care about or make assumptions about relationship or family structures. Even if every human were single and babies were made in sperm banks and creches, and every human was assigned one baby from the pool to raise, you still "have" 2 kids, in the sense that you took part in the creation of 2 kids. I don't know how this needs to be explained to any human?
      - Razengan 5y ago
        Are you suggesting that the 2 children mate with each other?
        5y ago
lmm 5y ago
> is it immoral for me to have no kids because it means the extinction of the human race? Yes! > Is it immoral for me to have 3 kids because it means exponential growth, overpopulation, famine and destruction of the Earth? If we follow the logic to its end, the only moral choice is for everyone to have not 1, not 3 but exactly 2 kids. Limiting to 2 would cause the extinction of the human race. Some people should have 3 so that we get a sustainable level of population growth - especially people in countries where the population is declining. (I'm not anti-emulator, I'm not even a huge fan of the categorical imperative, but this is an astonishingly weak counterargument)
- ylyn 5y ago
  >> is it immoral for me to have no kids because it means the extinction of the human race? > Yes! This is a flawed rule then.
  - lmm 5y ago
    That's what selfish people tend to say about moral principles they don't want to follow :P.
  - jpambrun 5y ago
    The birth rate of 1.5 children per women in Canada for example is unsustainable. Having it less than 2.0 means a lot of people are not pulling their weight in society. While there are other factors, not having children is immoral. For one, who will take care of you once you are no longer active? Our system relies on the next generation tax to pay services to elderly.
    - int_19h 5y ago
      If the system requires forcing people to give birth, it's the system that is immoral.
Tetilio 5y ago
This is a weird use of the law. There is no moral implication that you need to create kids. There is also a number you can orientate yourself if you like to achieve a certain outcome Nonetheless are you aware that Nintendo had quite bad numbers on and off? It could have broken Nintendo.

namlem 5y ago

It's not just in deontology either. It's also fundamental to rule utilitarianism.

bananamerica 5y ago

I'm pretty sure ethics advanced at least a little since 18th century.

icedistilled 5y ago

My twist on Kant's universality law is to add a "how many golf balls fit into a 747" guestimate. Yes I think some people would cherry pick skewed numbers to justify whatever action they want, but doing it with good faith estimates is pretty helpful. Usually the answer is don't do that.