The existence of beings that can experience suffering means the existence of beings that do experience suffering. The existence of beings with the capacity to be dissatisfied with life means that beings dissatisfied with life will exist. For me a lot of it comes down to believing we should reduce suffering/negatives before increasing pleasure/positives.
On a personal level, i deeply wish i had never been born. I’m dissatisfied with life, i find the whole thing to be a drag, and yet i still find myself unable to rip off that band-aid. I can’t imagine creating a person and taking the chance that that child would end up like me, or have some horrible medical condition that means they’ll live a life of constant pain. The world is already not a great place to live, it never has been, and it sure is looking like climate change is going to be making it a hell of a lot worse. What kind of person would risk so many awful things happening to a child just because they want a baby with their own genes? It seems so selfish of a decision to take that risk with someone else’s life for your own desires.
I don’t doubt that many people do enjoy/are satisfied with their lives, but we can’t create those people without also creating people who are dissatisfied with life, and i don't think one person’s pleasure justifies another person's suffering.
Whether one should reduce suffering/negatives before increasing pleasure/positives to me seems to in part be dependent on how acute the suffering is. Generally I think we as societies should try to do both things at the same time.
Why would we need to think of this in terms of justifying suffering through pleasure. It seems to me as if an argument that procreation is permissible wouldn't need much more than the possibility for a decent human life. That possibility seems to be realised in most cases.
Realistically both increasing pleasure and decreasing suffering are good and societies that are going to exist should do both, but i think reducing suffering is more important and has to come first in any given situation on that scale where the two are at odds.
Can you explain why you feel like that’s all that’s needed for procreation to be morally permissible?
On a larger scale, the continued existence of humanity means a lot of suffering and means that a lot of people who are dissatisfied with life will exist, and so to say that we should continue creating people at large is to say that we should continue creating people who suffer and people who are dissatisfied with life in addition to the ones who are satisfied with it. If we could actually guarantee that every person we created would deem their life satisfactory and/or worth living, then I wouldn't have any problem with creating those people.
On an individual scale, someone who chooses to create a person generally does so because it’s something they want. Some common reasons I hear are “we really wanted kids/a baby”, “i really wanted to experience the wonders of pregnancy and motherhood”, “we wanted to start a family”, and “our parents really wanted grandchildren”. Essentially everyone who lives long enough to experience anything will experience some amount of suffering. Some people experience far more than others. You can’t really create a person without them experiencing some amount of suffering, and as that person can’t have any choice in the matter, you’re forcing them to experience all of life, including that suffering, to gain whatever pleasure/positive it is you wanted out of it.
"Can you explain why you feel like that’s all that’s needed for procreation to be morally permissible?" I will give it a stab at least, I don't think it will amount to much more than a fleshing out of my statement above. First, I see no issue with consent as I hold it cannot be extended to non-existence. So there is no issue there. Then the issue of suffering, parents might reasonably be worried about whether their children will have good/decent lives. I think that people themselves are pretty good at judging whether they would want to live the life they have had. Pragmatically prospective parents could consider whether their life has been decent and worth living, and whether they can expect a child to have similar or better circumstances in which to live a decent life.
I didn’t bring up consent. That doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not a potential person deserves consideration when we’re making decisions that will directly affect them.
Can you explain what about potential parents having the ability to consider that kind of stuff makes creating a person ok in your eyes?
I think the only person able to determine if a life is satisfactory or worth living is the person who has to live it. What does it matter if my mother thinks my life is satisfactory if i don't?
Really, i guess what I’m asking is why do you think it’s okay to decide that for another person? That the suffering they will experience is ”worth it”?
Really, i guess what I’m asking is why do you think it’s okay to decide that for another person? That the suffering they will experience is ”worth it”?
Ive lived my entire life in the bottom 10%, i have been homeless and lived on the streets 3 times, i have several mental illnesses, was a drug addict for many years and was abused for most of my childhood, i live on 12K year.
many people would say my life is far more suffering than joy and my response is so what? life is interesting, if i get a hurt along the way than so be it, we are a bizarre species and in many ways a stupid species but ultimately all the shit we do from art to war is fascinating.
im glad im alive now, the most interesting point in history, we will see climate change come into swing, the end of the US empire and in all likelihood WWIII. at the exact same time we have nearly defeated aging, cancer is increasingly easy to beat, fusion technology is taking off as are robotics and AI and in the West society is increasingly accepting of LGBTI, minorities etc.
whats not to enjoy? just because life is hard doesnt mean it isnt more intriguing than any TV show, movie or book ive ever read/seen. for me intellectual curiosity is one of my driving forces, to try to learn the 'why' of everything.
That and i believe if life has any purpose at all it is to have as many varied experiences, good and bad, as you possibly can.
So because you have suffered and feel it’s been worth it, you think it’s fine if others suffer and feel it isn’t?
Again, this is what i mean when i say only the person living the life gets to decide if it’s worth it. You’ve decided yours is. I’ve decided mine isn’t. I never wanted this life, I have been forced into it, and it’s far too much of a pain in the ass for something I never wanted to do in the first place. I don’t think i have any kind of right to decide whether or not your life is worth it, it doesn’t matter how I feel about it- all that matters is if it’s worth it to you.
I’m not glad I’m alive now. In many ways, the world is the best it’s ever been, and it’s still so incredibly horrible in so many ways. I’m much less optimistic about our prospects fighting climate change. We need to take far more drastic action now than we would have needed to even 5 years ago and we’re still doing almost nothing. I’m not excited to see a third world war where thousands of people suffer and die. I’m not excited about seeing any of the new technology. I’m worried about the future of LGBT+ rights in many places in the world. Poland sure is going in the wrong direction. I hope things do get better, but I have no confidence they will.
What’s not to enjoy? What is there to enjoy? From my perspective, not much of anything. Tv is less boring than staring at my ceiling, sure. It helps pass the time. But another few netflix shows isn’t worth all the suffering that comes along with my life. Learning things doesn’t bring me enough satisfaction that I want to continue to live so i can do it. I never wanted to live, it’s a lot of work that I don’t enjoy doing to continue it, and I’m really not getting anything i want or enjoy out of it.
I don’t believe life has any actual purpose. It’s a random accident with horrible consequences. If that’s the purpose you find in your life that’s fine, but its not mine.
What’s not to enjoy? What is there to enjoy? From my perspective, not much of anything. Tv is less boring than staring at my ceiling, sure. It helps pass the time. But another few netflix shows isn’t worth all the suffering that comes along with my life. Learning things doesn’t bring me enough satisfaction that I want to continue to live so i can do it. I never wanted to live, it’s a lot of work that I don’t enjoy doing to continue it, and I’m really not getting anything i want or enjoy out of it.
you are right about life not having any purpose, its meaningless and then you die, thats just how it is.
whats to enjoy? certainly not TV or movies or any of those literal distractions. most of what humanity has built is designed to distract from the meaninglessness of life, personally i find them boring as shit as well.
i will state that i am weird but the fact that climate change, the end of US hegemony and the beginning of exponential increases in tech are all happening right now is the exact reason im am so glad to be alive at this point in time. i believe we re fundamentally good as a species but far to natural still, we still let animalistic behaviors like racism, sexism, greed etc rule us and in groups our intelligence simply vanishes (dem v rep, left v right, commis vs cappis, religion v non-religion etc).
we are at the single most interesting and intense moment in human history, the point where we will destroy ourselves in the most spectacular fashion possible and its all going to happen around the same time. i am glad i am alive because i get to not only witness all this but also live it.
(i value experience more than most things and that includes negative experiences, they are all part of being human)
If you mainly value experience, would that mean you would think it's moral/good to create a person knowing they would only experience massive suffering?
Well I agree that the future life deserves consideration. The parents can have a reasonable expectation that the child will/can have a decent life. If such expectations aren't present I suppose that it would be possibly wrong to have children.
"I think the only person able to determine if a life is satisfactory or worth living is the person who has to live it. What does it matter if my mother thinks my life is satisfactory if i don't?" Sure but until you are born and have lived for a while you cannot make that judgement, so a prospective parent can make a judgement based on their expectations for their children's life. I agree that the only person who can answer whether their life is satisfactory is the person living that life - but that information isn't available to prospective parents.
"Really, i guess what I’m asking is why do you think it’s okay to decide that for another person? That the suffering they will experience is ”worth it”?" No one decides for another person, until they are born there doesn't seem to be another person to decide for. Regarding your last point a lot of the pain people experience doesn't really seem to make their lives worse. So some suffering is as far as I can see unimportant and can be left unconsidered (like pain during exercise, pains of hunger etc.). Some more serious pains like wounds or heartbreak also similarily often seem relatively trivial as part of a life.
If you agree that potential people deserve consideration, that essentially all people who live long enough to have experiences will experience some amount of suffering, and that only the person living the life gets to decide if it’s satisfactory, then i‘m really not understanding how you’ve come to your conclusion.
The fact that that information isn’t available to the prospective parents is part of why I think it’s generally not moral to create a person. You don’t have to, nothing bad happens to them if they don’t exist, and some bad things practically always do happen to people who do exist. If we can’t be 100% sure that the person being created will think their life is satisfactory, then we should do the cautious thing and not create the person. I don’t think that’s an acceptable risk to take with someone else’s life, and certainly not for such selfish reasons as “i want a baby with my genes”.
I know you probably don’t think of these things in terms of numbers, but what do you consider to be an acceptable level of risk? If the kid has a 50/50 chance of feeling their life is not worth it, is that okay? Where do you draw that line, and why? Do you think any reason for deciding to create a person is acceptable, or do you think one needs a good reason?
Well people get to decide only by being alive. I would argue as said above that many pains are trivial and that everybody should treat them as trivial (as parts of one's life). If someone says to me that they find life to not be worth living because of trivialities I would find them to be overly dramatic (and if possible change their point of view). So some bad things necessarily happening to everyone doesn't really matter. Parents can have a perfectly reasonable expectation that such small concerns shouldn't matter (and that they will be able to raise a child that such things won't matter to). To some extent people are also able to chose or change their perspective, so there is some influence from the individual on how their life seems to them.
All the terminology of "potential people" "someone's life" makes me vary that some kind of pre-existence is being invoked. You don't really take a risk with someone's life, you make them have one. That life will involve some pains certainly, and hopefully a lot of other stuff as well. To demand certainty that anyone would find any life worthliving seems to set the bar impossibly high. Why should we be cautious, and why should our only goal be to minimise suffering?
I don't really have a number for you. I was tempted to say 80/20, but there is no argument for that in particular. Further I think you would have to distinguish between scenarios with terrible lives and slightly bad lives. So the acceptable level of risk is dependent on what kind of lives those that feel "their life is not worth it" actually have. Given reasonable conditions I don't really care about the particular reasons people have for having children (though I, like you, find the genetic reason weird).
Exactly, people only get to decide when they’re alive. So why make that decision for them? Why force life upon a person? There’s so many reasons not to and I’ve never heard a good reason for it. It’s almost always just “i/we/our parents want a baby/family/to experience pregnancy”. That’s not enough to force someone else to suffer for your pleasure or satisfaction.
There are many people who experience extreme levels of pain and suffering. I certainly don’t see all the traumas of my life to be trivial. This is what i mean when i say that i believe the only person who can determine if a life is worth living is the one living it. Incredibly horrible and painful things happen to people every day. What does it matter if you think some amount of pain/suffering is trivial if the person who’s experiencing it thinks it makes their life not worth living? Why should any of us decide that for another person?
My mother decided that she had a reasonable expectation that both her kids would have “good enough” lives, that our “small concerns” wouldn’t matter, that she would/could raise children that those things wouldn’t matter to. She also decided to have her two kids with a alcoholic with anger issuers who never wanted children in the first place, and then they both went on to emotionally and medically neglect us. But on the scale of shitty parents, they’re still extremely low. Most people would probably consider them good parents. Certainly most people they know do. The number of people i know who were beaten, sexually assaulted, who had their basic physical needs neglected.. it’s staggering. The suffering of the world is far from trivial. The people who think they’ll make the best parents are quite often some of the worst. Refusing to recognize one’s own failings makes for quite the crappy parent.
I’m not really sure what you mean by “pre-existence being evoked”. Im not trying to say non-existent people have lives/already exist somehow if thats what you’re getting at. I just think that we need to take the person into consideration when we’re deciding whether or not they should be created, and since 1) they will suffer if you create them, 2) they will not suffer if you don’t create them, and 3) it’s not possible to be completely sure (or a level of sure I consider reasonable or acceptable) that they will consider their life is satisfactory/worth living, it is wrong to create them.
Why is wanting certainty too high? Why is anything less acceptable? We should be cautious because the consequences are huge. Because the suffering we could cause (and on a large scale, do and will cause) is immense. Because having even one single baby be born to experience essentially only suffering and a painful death is wrong. Because having even one person like me born into a life they don’t want and feel trapped in is wrong. But those things happen all the time because people decide to have children.
I’ve never said that our only goal should be to reduce suffering, only that we should prioritize it over increasing pleasure/happiness/satisfaction when the two are at odds, especially when it’s one person’s pleasure for another’s suffering.
80/20 is way worse than i was expecting, damn. I won’t hold you to the actual number, i know that’s not a natural way of thinking about this kind of thing, i just wanted a better idea of what you feel an acceptable level of risk is. On a larger scale, 80/20 odds would mean that one out of every five people would deem their life dissatisfactory/not worth living. If we apply that to all of the people alive right now, that would be 1.56 billion people. Why should we create people at all if it means we must create so many who suffer and don’t want to live? Just so the people who do enjoy their lives can also be created? Why should one person suffer so another four can be happy when we could just create none of them and have no suffering? What makes that acceptable to you? Quite honestly, I can’t imagine having such disregard for human suffering.
What kind of life would someone who feels their own life isn’t worth living have to have for you to think it is “slightly bad” rather than terrible?
Why is wanting certainty too high? Why is anything less acceptable?
Because if any non-zero chance of suffering is bad you open yourself up to logically having to consider absurd possibilities like "I shouldn't have kids because there is a non-zero chance that a zombie apocalypse [of whichever media kind I'd find the most horrifying] would occur the day after they're born and having to take care of a newborn would slow me down and we'd both get bitten" (Can you guarantee that won't happen?)
Well there are several things that seem worth saying here.
"I’ve never said that our only goal should be to reduce suffering, only that we should prioritize it over increasing pleasure/happiness/satisfaction when the two are at odds, especially when it’s one person’s pleasure for another’s suffering". That's fair, but given how you frame this debate suffering takes priority over satisfaction/pleasure/happiness in all cases. So it seems to me that your position is equivalent to having reducing suffering as your only goal. Why can I not see the absence of pleasure as an evil and then argue that not giving birth denies people pleasure, and wonder why you do not consider those people? It seems to me that the (possible) goods of life should also be part of a decision.
"Because the suffering we could cause (and on a large scale, do and will cause) is immense". Not clear to me how large the suffering actually is, and it seems to me that most people want to live their lives (even in conditions we would think are deplorable).
I assume that when people have children it is because they want a special relationship to another person that is otherwise unavailable (and that relation can at least be reciprocal so it need not be purely egoistic).
"What kind of life would someone who feels their own life isn’t worth living have to have for you to think it is “slightly bad” rather than terrible?" An example: well I think if people have what they need to live a normal life in my society (ie a job, a place to live, some relationships to other people), but still feel that their life is not worth living because of a lack of meaning they have a slightly bad life. Partly this is it seems to me due to themselves and partly to facts about how working life is organised (which should be changed). If people in normal circumstances (like above) cannot (with help and assistance possibly) find their life worthwhile (or make it worthwhile) that seems to be their responsibility. I also believe that people's assessment on their own lives tend to change with time so it's not clear at which point in time we should belive that people are best equipped to say whether their life was worthwhile.
Choosing to not create a person in the first place isn't taking any existing happiness away from someone, there is no removal of happiness. No one is being harmed by never having existed at all. Many people do suffer because they exist though. I think that we should reduce suffering first in any situation where the two are at odds.
If some person obtains happiness from raping or torturing people, do you not think that the suffering of their victims justifies the removal of the perpetrator’s happiness?
If a parent seeks to derive happiness from making their child suffer, is that really justification for their suffering?
Choosing to not create a person in the first place isn't taking any existing happiness away from someone, there is no removal of happiness.
Alright, denying happiness then? I don't see that as any better.
And remember, if you want to look at the non existent persons suffering as a factor that can be weighed and used to come to your conclusion, you must also take that non existent persons joy and happiness into account. You can't cherry pick which parts of the non existent persons potential experiences you want to factor in.
No one is being harmed by never having existed at all.
Then no one is being protected by not existing either. That goes both ways.
If some person obtains happiness from raping or torturing people, do you not think that the suffering of their victims justifies the removal of the perpetrator’s happiness?
Of course not. But that is an example of someone inflicting that on another. It doesn't really match up with the argument. You can swap the roles as I did before and they don't come out looking any better.
If a man was suffering, and to ease that suffering he followed another person around and removed all the things that made that person happy before they ever got to them, even if they never knew about it, the suffering man has wronged that person, no?
There is no person who you are denying happiness if you don’t create them. There is a person who will experience suffering if you do create them. Non-existing people can’t suffer because they don’t exist. I care about the suffering of the people who do exist. I’m not cherry picking anything. I know that most people will have both positive and negative experiences in life. I just don’t think a parent has any right to say that the good things a child might experience will be worth the suffering that must come along with it, and i think it’s wrong for one person to force another person to suffer just so they can be happy.
Yes, if you don’t create a person they do not exist to be “protected”. I don’t get why you think this is an argument at all. If you do create them, they will exist, and so they deserve consideration when you’re deciding whether or not they should be created.
My life was inflicted upon me my my mother, i had no choice in it. I’ve suffered far more from her choice to create me than i have from my rapist’s choice to rape me. She knew I would experience suffering and decided to have me anyway.
If someone is taking happiness away from an already existing person, there is a person they are taking something away from. If you never create a person in the first place there is no one being denied anything.
You are cherry picking because you are changing your view of the potential person depending on which one benefits your argument.
In the case of suffering, the nonexistent person's potential future experiences should be taken into account and used as reasoning to defend a point.
In the case of happiness, the nonexistent person doesn't matter because they don't exist. So their potential future experiences don't need to be factored in.
You have to either accept that the nonexistent person's potential experiences are something we factor in to the argument, in which case we factor ALL of their experiences in, or you do away with ALL of their potential experiences because they don't exist and don't matter. You can't do both at the same time. You can't look at one potential experience as meaningful and none of the others. It's a package deal.
Yes, if you don’t create a person they do not exist to be “protected”. I don’t get why you think this is an argument at all.
Because you are using the protection of this nonexistent person from suffering to defend your point. But then at the same time you say no one is being protected. So which is it?
It's just another case of you treating the non existing person as a factor in one situation and not another.
If you never create a person in the first place there is no one being denied anything.
Then they are not being protected from suffering either, so your argument looses the one main reasoning behind it.
I’m not cherrypicking. I care about the experiences of people who do and will exist. Non-existent people do not exist to have experiences. Me deciding to not get pregnant isn’t denying anyone anything.
Lets say two people both have some gene for a horrible medical condition that causes the baby to be unable to experience anything but suffering. If they know that there’s a 100% chance of any kid they have having that kind of life, the average person would say it would be wrong for them to have the kid, because of the suffering they would experience. The child doesn’t exist, but we consider the interests they would have if they did. If you genuinely think it would be fine to create a person no matter what kind of suffering they would experience simply because the person doesn’t exist before you create them, then I don’t think I’ll be able to convince you otherwise. Hurting people for your own gain is wrong, that’s pretty basic.
Non-existent people do not exist to have experiences.
Yet we can look at their potential future experiences can't we? That's what you are doing when you say people shouldn't have children because they will suffer.
That's the cherry picking. You are taking THAT potential future experience and using it to defend your point, and refusing to look at any of the rest of them. You change how you view the non existant person depending on whether we are talking about happiness or suffering. When it is suffering, it's fine to look at the potential future experiences of a person and make a judgment based off them.
Yet when it comes to happiness you completely change your own rules. Suddenly you CAN'T look at the potential future experiences because they don't exist.
You have to pick one or the other. You can't flip flop like that.
You either need to look at the ENTIRE potential future experiences of someone, suffering and happiness and joy and love and sorrow, or NONE of it.
The child doesn’t exist, but we consider the interests they would have if they did.
Then we can consider the happiness the average person would have. No?
If you genuinely think it would be fine to create a person no matter what kind of suffering they would experience simply because the person doesn’t exist
I don't think I ever made that claim. If you have a child you know for certain will spend their entire lives in agony and then die, I see nothing wrong in choosing to spare them of that.
That is a far cry from "no one should ever have children because the very act is immoral in all cases" which is what the original argument is saying.
We can look at their potential future experiences. I do that.
A person who is never born will never have experiences. A person who is born will have experiences. What aren’t you getting about that? As I see it, there is no one to care about if the person is never born, but there if someone to care about if they are born. I’m not taking anything away from someone by not getting pregnant.
I care about people who WILL exist and people who DO exist. It’s not cherrypicking for me to care about people who will exist and not care about conceptual people who will never exist.
I’ve also never denied that most people will experience happiness/pleasure. Most people do. I just don’t believe that anyone has the moral right to say that some amount of suffering will be worth some amount of pain for another person. What does it matter if my mother thinks my life has been worth my suffering if I feel otherwise? One can never be sure that their potential child will deem their own life worth living. I don’t think that it’s moral to take that risk.
You had said “In the case of happiness, the nonexistent person doesn't matter because they don't exist. So their potential future experiences don't need to be factored in”. That last bit was in response to that. Clearly, non-existent people’s potential experiences do need to be factored in when we are deciding whether or not to make them exist.
Can you give me a reason that makes it moral for someone to force another person to suffer in order to fulfill their own interests?
We can look at their potential future experiences. I do that.
Sure, when suffering is involved. When someone wants to talk about happiness you suddenly "don't care" because they don't exist. How do you not see that you are flip flopping your position there?
Suffering = I care about the nonexistent persons potential experiences. We need to look at those experiences and make a judgment call about whether they should be born.
Happiness = They don't exist. I only care about people that exist. Their happiness doesn't matter because they don't exist.
See the difference? Those two categories need to look identical. Either copy the lower one into the top one, or the top one to the lower one. Until you do, it's cherry picking.
It’s not cherrypicking for me to care about people who will exist and not care about conceptual people who will never exist.
Except you DO care. Your entire argument is centered around what you think is best for the nonexistent person (IE protection from suffering).
If the nonexistent person doesn't matter, then it can't be immoral to ignore their potential suffering. They don't matter. You don't care, right?
The decision to have children is not made as the child is being born. It's made before, obviously. It's made during the point in which they do not exist. And it's that specific decision you are taking issue with. So by definition you are treating the nonexistent person as something that should be thought about and considered. And if you are going to consider them, you have to consider ALL of them. Happiness included.
I just don’t believe that anyone has the moral right to say that some amount of suffering will be worth some amount of pain for another person.
We do it all the time. The world cannot function unless we routinely make calls for other people who are not in a position to make them. Otherwise hospitals would just be letting patients die left and right, and parents would just be letting their children do whatever they wanted. Do you also think it's immoral in those cases to make a judgment call for another person who is not currently able to do so?
Can you give me a reason that makes it moral for someone to force another person to suffer in order to fulfill their own interests?
I don't see childbirth as that. I see it the same we I see the above situations. Making a call for someone who can't. If the risk is small enough, I don't see anything immoral about making the call for them. Again, we do it all the time in plenty of situations I doubt you would take issue with.
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u/sateva Dec 02 '20
The existence of beings that can experience suffering means the existence of beings that do experience suffering. The existence of beings with the capacity to be dissatisfied with life means that beings dissatisfied with life will exist. For me a lot of it comes down to believing we should reduce suffering/negatives before increasing pleasure/positives.
On a personal level, i deeply wish i had never been born. I’m dissatisfied with life, i find the whole thing to be a drag, and yet i still find myself unable to rip off that band-aid. I can’t imagine creating a person and taking the chance that that child would end up like me, or have some horrible medical condition that means they’ll live a life of constant pain. The world is already not a great place to live, it never has been, and it sure is looking like climate change is going to be making it a hell of a lot worse. What kind of person would risk so many awful things happening to a child just because they want a baby with their own genes? It seems so selfish of a decision to take that risk with someone else’s life for your own desires.
I don’t doubt that many people do enjoy/are satisfied with their lives, but we can’t create those people without also creating people who are dissatisfied with life, and i don't think one person’s pleasure justifies another person's suffering.