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> Every moral duty is owed to a real, identifiable someone. You can’t have a duty to “a possible person” who does not yet exist. This doesn’t hold up. It is ef

by csb6 1y ago

> Every moral duty is owed to a real, identifiable someone. You can’t have a duty to “a possible person” who does not yet exist. This doesn’t hold up. It is effectively denying that people will be born in the future, which of course they will be since antinatalism is not universal and fertility rates are above zero. There are valuable things that can be done today that will help those people but not anyone alive today (e.g. preservation of media that is well-known and widely distributed today but may not be in the future when it is more historically valuable). It is safe to assume that new people will be born at some point in the future (given current conditions) and will then be “identifiable”, so you have to account for their future existences when making moral decisions with future consequences.

dragonwriter 1y ago
> This doesn’t hold up. It is effectively denying that people will be born in the future No, it merely denies that people that do not exist can have moral duties owed to them.
- csb6 1y ago
  If the actions I take now will affect someone I know will exist in the future and who will be owed duties, I effectively have a moral duty. You can say the moral duty is not in existence until the person is actually born, but my duty to that future person has to be taken into account now so it already exists in a meaningful sense.
  - dusted 1y ago
    The argument is specifically treating the duty to create new people, not any other duties. A common argument against antinatalism, is that we have a duty to create new people, because if we don't create them, they can't have good lives.. That would be true, if there was an actual pool of unborn people, like, some metaphysical vault of people yet to be born, waiting for their turn.. In _THAT_ case, we _would_ have a duty to create them, so that they can have good lives, and experience all the amazing stuff we get to experience.. However, since there's no such vault, there is no duty to create them, there is nobody that is owed life on the grounds that if they do not get it, they are deprived of it.. because people that are not born yet, do not actually exist in any way. That does not eliminate any duty towards the unspecific mass of people that will indeed be born in the future, regardless of whether creating them is wrong or right, there is still a moral duty to attempt to make the world as good a place for them to be in..
- esafak 1y ago
  We could destroy the planet leaving all future generations screwed and that's okay because they are owed nothing? If that thinking passed muster we wouldn't be having this conversation. It's obviously maladaptive.
  - voxic11 1y ago
    I don't think that is the argument, because it presupposes those future generations exist. The argument is that if we somehow prevented those future generations from existing (without violating our duties to any currently existing peoples) then we wouldn't owe a duty to them. I think this is pretty obviously true. But some people do disagree and say that we have a duty to ensure that future generations do exist.
    - esafak 1y ago
      *You* are the future generation of your ancestors. I assume you would not have wanted to live in a universe when humanity was wiped out aeons ago, or left to some Mad Max existence. The people making that argument do so from the luxury of not having had many ancestors that held such misanthropic beliefs. I would ask them to contemplate Kant's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
      - dragonwriter 1y ago
        > I assume you would not have wanted to live in a universe when humanity was wiped out aeons ago I am pretty sure it would be impossible for that to occur, unless you are talking to a non-human (in which case they very much might want that.)
        esafak 1y ago
        This is a thought experiment where we consider the ramifications of holding this belief. In a universe where this belief is held, your existence may be thoroughly miserable. Would you accept that? And even if you did personally, on what basis do you have the right to make this decision for everybody else? The rational and moral behavior is for you to decide your own fate and leave others alone.
dusted 1y ago
I'm not arguing against the moral duty of making the future better for those that are created in the future, I agree with that perspective. I only try to enhance the argument that there is no moral duty to create them. Moral value is for those who exist, and given that we know more will come to exist, even though their creation itself is (in my view) morally negative, it does not conflict with acknowledging that they will, and to make the world as good as possible for them.

by csb6 1y ago

dragonwriter 1y ago

> This doesn’t hold up. It is effectively denying that people will be born in the future No, it merely denies that people that do not exist can have moral duties owed to them.

csb6 1y ago
If the actions I take now will affect someone I know will exist in the future and who will be owed duties, I effectively have a moral duty. You can say the moral duty is not in existence until the person is actually born, but my duty to that future person has to be taken into account now so it already exists in a meaningful sense.
- dusted 1y ago
  The argument is specifically treating the duty to create new people, not any other duties. A common argument against antinatalism, is that we have a duty to create new people, because if we don't create them, they can't have good lives.. That would be true, if there was an actual pool of unborn people, like, some metaphysical vault of people yet to be born, waiting for their turn.. In _THAT_ case, we _would_ have a duty to create them, so that they can have good lives, and experience all the amazing stuff we get to experience.. However, since there's no such vault, there is no duty to create them, there is nobody that is owed life on the grounds that if they do not get it, they are deprived of it.. because people that are not born yet, do not actually exist in any way. That does not eliminate any duty towards the unspecific mass of people that will indeed be born in the future, regardless of whether creating them is wrong or right, there is still a moral duty to attempt to make the world as good a place for them to be in..
esafak 1y ago
We could destroy the planet leaving all future generations screwed and that's okay because they are owed nothing? If that thinking passed muster we wouldn't be having this conversation. It's obviously maladaptive.
- voxic11 1y ago
  I don't think that is the argument, because it presupposes those future generations exist. The argument is that if we somehow prevented those future generations from existing (without violating our duties to any currently existing peoples) then we wouldn't owe a duty to them. I think this is pretty obviously true. But some people do disagree and say that we have a duty to ensure that future generations do exist.
  - esafak 1y ago
    *You* are the future generation of your ancestors. I assume you would not have wanted to live in a universe when humanity was wiped out aeons ago, or left to some Mad Max existence. The people making that argument do so from the luxury of not having had many ancestors that held such misanthropic beliefs. I would ask them to contemplate Kant's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
    - dragonwriter 1y ago
      > I assume you would not have wanted to live in a universe when humanity was wiped out aeons ago I am pretty sure it would be impossible for that to occur, unless you are talking to a non-human (in which case they very much might want that.)
      - esafak 1y ago
        This is a thought experiment where we consider the ramifications of holding this belief. In a universe where this belief is held, your existence may be thoroughly miserable. Would you accept that? And even if you did personally, on what basis do you have the right to make this decision for everybody else? The rational and moral behavior is for you to decide your own fate and leave others alone.

dusted 1y ago

I'm not arguing against the moral duty of making the future better for those that are created in the future, I agree with that perspective. I only try to enhance the argument that there is no moral duty to create them. Moral value is for those who exist, and given that we know more will come to exist, even though their creation itself is (in my view) morally negative, it does not conflict with acknowledging that they will, and to make the world as good as possible for them.