Thread 24805224

As far as I can tell, the pro-natalist position makes two critical mistakes in their reasoning. The first one is an implicit postulation that life has inherent positive value. The second one is a problem of consent. No one can consent to existence, and the idea that life can be injected into a new person at-will being a positive thing infers a belief that it is moral to commit an action that is perceived as positive on someone who is unable to consent. I don't think I need to explain why this is wrong.

Furthermore, life comes with some instinctive behavioral and biological baggage. One cannot simply "stop existing" while having already began to exist without overcoming the massive hurdle that is the self-preservation instinct against death. And even further, awareness of suicide isn't something that develops until later in life, when one is already surrounded by people who would feel extreme pain at losing them. From a utilitarian POV, suicide will further increase the suffering in the world. The pro-natalist position, as far as I can tell, posits that it is moral to impose suffering and uncertainty on someone who is unable to consent to this questionable gift.

I don't believe in consent

>>24805224 (OP)
I have 2 questions for you:
Is murder good?
Does a baby or a fetus have the ability to consent?

>>24805224 (OP)
>position
>their

>>24805354
>>Is murder good?
Define murder, and define "good". Events in and of themselves do not carry inherent moral value, we assign it to them. If by murder, you mean the unlawful killing of another human being, against their wish, then most people would very likely assign a negative moral value.
>Does a baby or a fetus have the ability to consent?
No, but it's already too late at that point. Life has been imparted without consent.

>>24805625
You can search both the definitions of murder and good in the dictionary or google. Why do you think that murder is evil?

>>24805689
>You can search both the definitions of murder and good in the dictionary or google
Ah yes, because no one has ever used a word incorrectly in the history of linguistics. Especially not when concerning of a legally-charged term in a philosophical discussion. I'm still curious to hear what you consider "good"? According to whose morality?

>>24805224 (OP)
billions must die

>>24805718
Dude. This is a very simple problem. We are not diving into a very problematic and semantical topic. We are talking about why is murder considered evil.
Why is murder evil, to you?

>>24805224 (OP)
Two more weeks

>>24805332
Neither do I. Sexual reproduction should be a human right, not just for women but men too.

>>24805224 (OP)
One word: Egoism
Stop caring what other people want, need, think. The only thing that matters is you, and if you want a child, you should have one. You're egoist at heart, like every human being, especially those who do not have children

>>24805846
Because it can destroy society. But that's a subjective reason.

>>24805224 (OP)
>No one can consent to existence
Yes they can. You forgetting that you consented doesn't mean you didn't

>>24805224 (OP)
>frog nigger
lol your parents make the best argument against pro natalism

>>24806216
I see. So do you believe that human life has no value at all besides forming society? But, if you are anti-natalist, you are also anti-society. There cannot be a society if people stop having children, it would quickly colapse after some decades.

>frog chad
your parents were right to bring you in this world

>>24806385
I don't believe that anything has any inherent value. We ascribe value to things. We're evidently biased in ascribing value to human life (and life, by extension) as we are alive ourselves. Society will collapse if people stop having children, but having children itself is an immoral non-consensual of existence on someone who never consented to receiving it.

>>24806508
Well my children are just going to have to deal with the immorality of it then.

>>24806508
But you agreed that murder was evil because it "destroys society". Why is not having children morally correct if it also destroys society?

>>24806537
I said that I subjectively believe that the non-consensual killing of another person is evil because it's destructive to society. There are a few more addendums to this: I don't think it's unethical to kill a person that consents to being killed (though it is unlawful). Consent plays a major part here. In a sense, giving birth to someone is worse than killing that person: you're forcing them to experience a lifetime of suffering, before inevitably dying. The act of giving life contains a death sentence within.

No one can not consent to exist because there is no being withholding consent until said being exists

I think the problem is that almost no one, even any natalists, even suicides, desires nonexistentence. Rather someone strongly desires an existence other than what he has. And this is why Buddhism is not antinatalist (or pro natalist). It is still about desire for existence

>>24805224 (OP)
>I don't believe that anything has any inherent value.
Then you're just a nihilistic jew arguing form false assumptions. Sorry!

>>24806755
meant for >>24806508

>>24805224 (OP)
>No one can consent to existence
Oh how little you know...

>>24805224 (OP)
The very act of rationalizing the "value" or "utility" of having children is the sign of a culture and people that is decrepit and senile. It is the world-feeling of the race who forfeits its place in the world for the stronger, vital, 'barbaric' people.

>>24806508
>I don't believe that anything has any inherent value.
That's the crux of the matter, you're a nihilist. You're not going to see eye-to-eye with those that aren't nihilists. The natalist position is that life has inherent value and is precious. Having children is not forcing existence on them without their consent, it is giving the gift of life.

>>24806508
Does society have inherent value?

>>24805224 (OP)
Reject nihilism OP.

You are loved and worthy of love.

>>24806963
This. OP >>24805224 (OP), what you really need to understand is that your life has value, you cannot be replaced.

>>24805224 (OP)
I used to share this view on suffering and existence but it manifested more like a variant of gnostic thought. I've never been an anti-natalist though, because I see the joy and wonder in children's total immersion in the flux of the world and can't help but feel that our fall into the gnostic trap comes later, when we lose this immediacy and fall into symbolic order or whatever term or metaphor you want to use for this loss of innocence or alienation.
It is hard to let go and just experience the flow of birth, growth, decay and death as just that. We get melancholic when we see children enjoying stupid simple things or acting on impulses and predictable triggers, like they don't know what le real world is like, like they live in an illusion of things being how they feel. But in fact we don't feel what le real world feels like and we are butthurt about it, because it's impossible to forget and it's hard to un-know.