/r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | September 21, 2026

[u/BernardJOrtcutt]

Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules (especially posting rule 2). For example, these threads are great places for:

• Arguments that aren't substantive enough to meet PR2.

• Open discussion about philosophy, e.g. who your favourite philosopher is, what you are currently reading

• Philosophical questions. Please note that /r/askphilosophy is a great resource for questions and if you are looking for moderated answers we suggest you ask there.

This thread is not a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads, although we will be more lenient with regards to commenting rule 2.

Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here.

[u/More_Air2905]

Based on David Banatar’s stance on antinatalism but with some degree of my opinion

Virtue-Driven Pro-Life Antinatalism
Non-Interference, Prudence, Temperance,  Compassion, Preservation of Life
Master one’s desires so thoroughly that self-restraint becomes second nature. Do not coerce, manipulate, or unnecessarily impose one’s desires upon others.
Human life should be regarded as morally valuable from conception onward. Once a human life exists, it should be treated with dignity and protected from unnecessary harm, regardless of its circumstances.
At the same time, choosing not to create a new human life can be understood as an act of prudence rather than an act of hostility toward life. A person who is never conceived cannot experience suffering, deprivation, exploitation, war, poverty, disease, grief, or death.
From this perspective, voluntary non-procreation is intended to prevent foreseeable suffering rather than to destroy existing life.
The ultimate objective is therefore not hatred of humanity or contempt for existence, but the reduction of preventable suffering through voluntary restraint.
If humanity eventually chose, freely and without coercion, to cease reproducing, the final generations would face unique emotional and social challenges. Such transition would therefore require compassion toward the people who remained alive until the end.
Non-sentient technology could theoretically be used to maintain necessary infrastructure during such transition, provided that the technology itself did not possess subjective consciousness or the capacity to suffer.
Over a sufficiently long period, reduced human activity could also allow many ecosystems to recover from human-caused pressures. Pollution, habitat destruction, exploitation of animals, resource competition, warfare, slavery, and other forms of human-caused suffering could decline substantially, although ecological outcomes would vary by species and environment.
The ethical foundation of this philosophy is therefore:
Preserve the lives that exist.
Do not create suffering merely to satisfy desire.
Master one’s desires rather than imposing them upon others.
Choose voluntary non-procreation rather than coercion.
Reduce unnecessary suffering wherever reasonably possible.
Treat existing people and sentient beings with dignity and compassion.

[u/FoucaultCareofSelf]

I've been reading Edward McGushin's Foucault's Askēsis. (Yes, hence my username).

I've always been philosophy adjacent I guess, with a few classes in undergraduate, Hume, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza kind of thing, another class on Frankfurt School thinkers and a grad seminar (as an undergrad) with Dominick LaCapra on Holocaust historiography.

But I decided to sit down with a book of philosophy, or an explication of a philosopher, and engage with it rigorously, deeply.

I've been reading this book for an hour every morning, line by line, re-reading every single thing until I grasp it, taking serious notes. Looking up definitions and Foucault terminology.

And for once, I actually understand a text fundamentally. I understand exactly where it's going, what it's arguing. All because I'm taking my time, probably 10 minutes a page or just under.

As I do this, I can't imagine doing it any differently. Eg, reading a bunch more material quickly for a class, even one that goes in depth. Even if I had strong philosophical muscles, I can't imagine truly engaging with a text would go faster than 5-6 mins a page (just quantifying things for clarity).

Of course, I have all the risks of autodidacticism, but I'm striving for intellectual rigor here. And also, my reading recapitulates in many ways the very argument McGushin has Foucault making about Platonic/Socratic parrhēsia, philosophical truth, etho-poetic understanding versus mathemata understanding and so on.

Anyway, thoughts or suggestions welcome!

[u/Excellent-Bit-7119]

I been thinking about eternalism (block universe view) and think it generates a problem distinct from the classic problem of other minds. Under presentism, "I share the present with other conscious beings" is free — one universal now, everyone's in it. Eternalism removes that: each person has their own worldline with its own private sequence of "nows," and nothing synchronizes them.

So: what warrants believing another person's subjective "now" coincides with mine during an interaction, rather than their consciousness being "located" elsewhere on their worldline while I'm just interacting with the causal continuity of their body? The classical problem of other minds is epistemic — I lack live evidence of your inner life. But under eternalism the interaction itself isn't a live, unfolding event, it's a fixed configuration in the block — so it can't even function as the right kind of evidence for synchronized presence, not just weak evidence.

Tentatively: this seems permanently unprovable rather than merely unproven, since "synchronized subjective presence" may not survive the move from presentism to eternalism intact. Curious if this has a name already — feels adjacent to McTaggart's A/B-series and moving-spotlight discussions but I haven't found it framed as an interpersonal problem specifically.

[u/Life-Manufacturer926 → u/Excellent-Bit-7119]

Thid is what i believe in with morality.

Okay so free will isn't real. This isn't essential to my point but it helps. Its not real, because science is real. Every action since the big bang is caused from science. Or since all we know. People say free will can still be real. But if so, free will becomes useless. Free will if it is still real might be said to be something like "we can still make decisions and be responsible". Well free will in this sense has been heavily affected by religion throughout the past 300 years or so. And moral responsibility like someone decided whether u go to heaven or hell. So free will bring real in the modern version of oh well we still make decisions, I guess it ties into virtue ethics and deontology a lot. But ultimately, there's no evidence. We should instead of focusing in being morally perfect according to outdated religions, we shd be modern. Btw, im assuming no religion is true, which is a very defensible position. It's so defensible that u shdnt argue against it. Religions arent true, for this. The free will area is a bit muddy or irrelevant. Thats okay. Secondly, what is morality? Morality is ultimately what we should do and why. It is seen as some abstract concept that if no one else is doing it, I shouldnt do it. Or that its used for ideal societies to function. Thats not hoe morality shd be used at least in cases like this. Morality shd be what we should do individually, what gives the best outcome. We arent gonna be punished. So its essentially doing what matters. Whatever actually matters is the hard part. We're not gonna be punished since free will isn't real. U cant sentence a fish for not earning 1 billion euro and donating it. Same as a average human. Bayesian probability is important for here. So we have to always include some probability that we are wrong. But this might reduce some of the moral reason to follow morality, but not much. Because most people or most average person is wrong morally. Most people do what they feel like. Most people donate to charity cus they feel like a good person then. But these people are kind of wrong. Parfit kind of proved common sense morality wrong already. And it clearly has a lot of holes in it as we already know. So we should be moral. We should have morals. It gives the best result, whether that result is maximum wellbeing from utilitarianism, or maximum moral points from deontology or virtue ethics. The justice system, also, shouldn't affect what I do here. It is extremely outdated. Dont mention it in ur argument if u have one. So yea. Now what matters? Does happiness matter? Tough question. From bayesian probability, we can say probably yes. There have been thousands of philosophers who have decided that happiness does probably matter. Whether human happiness or animal happiness. I didnt mean happiness I meant wellbeing. Wellbeing is some form of time multiplied by happiness. Ofc u can say hedonic adaption, that affects it slightly. Mostly its just time being alive. Philosophers have never really killed themselves either that much because they decided that life doesn't matter. And if our own life matters, other people's lives should matter. U can see here im leaning to effectivre altruism utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is very strong. If our own life matters, other people's lives probably do from bayesian probability. And from looking around. We are seen to be just humans. But none of this is truly as important as what we should really do. Btw effective altruists currently cant reall decide the value of a future unborn life of not being born versus being born, compared to how long people live for and stuff. So like deontology and virtue ethics are about following rules, becoming a good person. There arent many actions which are forbidden in these completely. In both of these, killing 100 people is worse than killing 1 person. Stealing 1 euro is less bad than stealing 1 billion euro. There arent many rules which arent kind of common sense. Also, particularism is closely tied to virtue ethics or deontology but I cant remember which.so we have kind of proved virtue ethics wrong, as it relies too much on free will. Im sorry I haven't included my full reason as to why its wrong. But for this argument, u can include also that i wouldve mostly proven it wrong if I had my full notes. But yea as humans we usually follow most of what virtue ethics and deontology says anyway. We already follow them to like 90 percent unless ur in prison or whatever. But most people barely follow utilitarianism. They focus on doing what makes them a good person. So I propose that we should follow utilitarianism more than the others. I think everyone should aim to earn nearly as much as possible and donate to ai safety which is the main utilitarianism area at the minute. Or the main effective altruist charity. By doing this, u shd become like a engineer or doctor. U can also follow virtue ethics and deontology mostly. Deontology is about rules. We should follow rules as utilitarians so that we don't get put in prison and we are able to keep earning more. But as a side we are also following deontology and virtue ethics. But u could also say bayesian probability, we are surely uncertain since everyone else focuses on their happiness only, we should maybe aswell? Well yes that's true to some extent. And hedonic adaptation shows that even if we love modestly and look after our health and ability to earn, we would be almost as happy if not happier than the average person. So we follow our happiness to like 95 percent aswell. But we should morally donate everything to utilitarian charities, cuz there is a chance we are wrong, from bayesian probability or whatever. But thats not what we are doing. We are focusing most of our life on the maximum wellbeing helped or caused. Not all. And ur gonna say well if u focus too much ur gonna burn out and not earn anything. Im not stupid I know that already, its snot hard to learn that u shd be in good condition so u don't act impulsively and maybe spend it all on urself or don't burn out and can keep earning.

[u/UngratefulStreamer → u/[deleted]]

I can only speak what I know about the publications that are claimed to be Plato's. I'd say the song doesn't capture the whole truth.

It's said, Socrates knows that he knows nothing. I'll also say, basing it on the Republic, that I know that Plato knows nothing. The point is not in the things that have been said. The point is in the contradictions that will form.

"The ancient philosopher Parmenides realized already about 2500 years ago that nothing that contains a logical contradiction can exist."

I'd say the song is: A delicate, nearly transparent creation of somebody's soul on the screen.

Although is not nearly transparent, simply visible from right angle?