4 ms·

Yes, I do think you’re being hyperbolic. We’re waging a life that doesn’t exist yet against two parents and possible a healthy child that could be. Accommodati

by 9dev 1y ago

Yes, I do think you’re being hyperbolic. We’re waging a life that doesn’t exist yet against two parents and possible a healthy child that could be. Accommodating for a human that exists, if suffering, is clearly a moral obligation. Doing so when it’s not a human but a husk still is not, and deciding in favour of the very human parents—who also have a right to happiness—is definitely ethically valid. In a related discussion, someone argued that keeping up industrial farming is just, because if we stopped doing so all the cattle that wouldn’t been born would be worse off for never being alive, even if their existence was suffering, because suffering is better than not being at all. I firmly believe this is just wrong. Before a being gains consciousness, it’s not a being and doesn’t experience, hence by avoiding their conception we also avoid unnecessary suffering.

deleted 1y ago
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calf 1y ago
So what if one doesn't exist yet and another could be? Then both are possibilities. Your sentences look superifically logical but they make no actual sense.
- 9dev 1y ago
  I'm not sure I get your point. Care to elaborate? In one case, we're talking about assured suffering. In the other, the absence of suffering. Both are hypothetical, but in one case, we know about the outcome. There's obviously a difference here.
  - calf 1y ago
    When you saying something like "we are talking about assured suffering" it is so unrigorous I cannot even begin to reply. Maybe read some philosophical literature. Or just the 5 w's like in grade school. Who suffers? Why is suffering bad? Why this comparison and not other comparative demarfations? What about second-order social effects? Could that increase suffering in some way? Serious ethicists grapple with these questions because they cannot assume a premise of 20th century nuclear-family hypotheticals (your error) removed from the societal context. And so on.
lurk2 1y ago
> In a related discussion, someone argued that keeping up industrial farming is just, because if we stopped doing so all the cattle that wouldn’t been born would be worse off for never being alive, even if their existence was suffering, because suffering is better than not being at all. I firmly believe this is just wrong. Before a being gains consciousness, it’s not a being and doesn’t experience, hence by avoiding their conception we also avoid unnecessary suffering. You bring up an interesting argument, but I think there is some nuance here. I am not arguing that we have an obligation to propagate human life for the sake of propagating human life; I just think there is a risk of devaluing existing human life by claiming it ought not to have existed in the first place. There are limitations here. e.g. if one is offended at the claim that Down Syndrome is something to be cured, it may be that one is placing too much emphasis on identifying the expression of an individual’s genes with the individual himself (so e.g. eliminating the extra chromosome is not analogous to eliminating the person himself). We wouldn’t do this with a broken bone, but the solution to a broken bone is setting the bone, whereas the “solution” to Down Syndrome has historically been abortion.

by 9dev 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

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calf 1y ago

So what if one doesn't exist yet and another could be? Then both are possibilities. Your sentences look superifically logical but they make no actual sense.

9dev 1y ago
I'm not sure I get your point. Care to elaborate? In one case, we're talking about assured suffering. In the other, the absence of suffering. Both are hypothetical, but in one case, we know about the outcome. There's obviously a difference here.
- calf 1y ago
  When you saying something like "we are talking about assured suffering" it is so unrigorous I cannot even begin to reply. Maybe read some philosophical literature. Or just the 5 w's like in grade school. Who suffers? Why is suffering bad? Why this comparison and not other comparative demarfations? What about second-order social effects? Could that increase suffering in some way? Serious ethicists grapple with these questions because they cannot assume a premise of 20th century nuclear-family hypotheticals (your error) removed from the societal context. And so on.

lurk2 1y ago

> In a related discussion, someone argued that keeping up industrial farming is just, because if we stopped doing so all the cattle that wouldn’t been born would be worse off for never being alive, even if their existence was suffering, because suffering is better than not being at all. I firmly believe this is just wrong. Before a being gains consciousness, it’s not a being and doesn’t experience, hence by avoiding their conception we also avoid unnecessary suffering. You bring up an interesting argument, but I think there is some nuance here. I am not arguing that we have an obligation to propagate human life for the sake of propagating human life; I just think there is a risk of devaluing existing human life by claiming it ought not to have existed in the first place. There are limitations here. e.g. if one is offended at the claim that Down Syndrome is something to be cured, it may be that one is placing too much emphasis on identifying the expression of an individual’s genes with the individual himself (so e.g. eliminating the extra chromosome is not analogous to eliminating the person himself). We wouldn’t do this with a broken bone, but the solution to a broken bone is setting the bone, whereas the “solution” to Down Syndrome has historically been abortion.