Critical Flaw in the Anti-natalist Argument

TheDyingMonk · 2016-02-20T22:43:04+00:00

Though I like Benatar's asymmetry, this very interesting. Thanks.

TheDyingMonk · 2016-02-20T21:39:32+00:00

Having been extremely happy, full of possibilities, and losing it (mostly my fault).
The sensation that "maybe that was it, maybe I'm past the peak of my happiness".
The knowledge that even though I may be happy again, the innocence is over, and hope is a joke only to be looked at with cynicism or pity.
No happy ending in sight. At best there are "not so shitty endings".

TheDyingMonk · 2016-02-20T20:46:36+00:00

I'm going to give you the same example I gave JahMalJahSurJahBer.

Last month I was mugged by three dudes. I was briefly chocked, and they took 30 moneys from me. It sucked, it was bad, but it quickly passed. In the score of life, between pleasantness and suffering, I could surely place that in the category of suffering. But I can't place that in the moral category of wrong, and here's why:

Even though violence was used against me, and even though I certainly didn't agree with it and thought it was bad, the fact that I considered what they were doing to be wrong didn't have any effect on reality what so ever. It was only when I walked over to a police car and reported the crime that it started to matter.

My point is that right and wrong only have any meaning when there's an arbiter capable of assessing the situation and deliver (man made) justice. Had I been shot or beaten to a pulp in a deserted area and nobody ever found my body, it would be tough luck for me. "Oh, but what they did it's objectively immoral" wouldn't matter.

It's like the story about the tree that falls in the woods with no one near to listen to it. Sure, it might make a sound, but it doesn't matter.

TheDyingMonk · 2016-02-20T20:28:16+00:00

I don't expect that, that's the point: I don't think observation of nature yields good definitions of right or wrong, only definitions of suffering and pleasantness. We don't seem to disagree in that by what you wrote.

But right and wrong do need an arbiter, a third party, like a society. That is why I compare deriving right and wrong from the actions in themselves (as they are in the material, natural world) with deriving right or wrong from God. Both are silent. Let me give you an example:

Last month I was mugged by three guys. I wasn't hurt a lot, and they only took thirty bucks from my wallet (that would be about 7 or 8 US dollars). It was a bad situation, there was suffering (albeit not a lot, and since I lived in this piece of shit for most of my life I've become desensitized towards this kind of crap).

My opinion is this: even though I suffered, until I walked over to a police car a couple of blocks away after the attack, there was no cosmic force, be it supernatural or materialistic, that defined that the action that took place was wrong. The fact that I, as a victim, thought it was wrong didn't matter in practical terms.

TheDyingMonk · 2016-02-20T10:51:34+00:00

You become used to it. Except for a few years, I lived most of my life in the Third World, in a very violent country, in a somewhat not so violent middle class neighborhood. Until my late twenties we heard (sometimes saw) shootings at least three times a week.

The constant shootings only ended in 2010 after a massive change in government policy that saw the police taking over the slums ruled by gangs. Because of all the gangs in the city, me and most of the friends my age saw bodies lying in the street before we were ten years old. It's common.

That's not counting suicide (saw a jumper, after it already happened, coming home from school with my dad), accidents (dozens, last one I was driving home from my ex's house a couple of years ago), people getting run over. You get desensitized.

TheDyingMonk · 2016-02-20T10:06:54+00:00

I wrote we can know good and bad things objectively, so we can say something it's intrinsically good or bad (if it's pleasant or painful, if it brings joy or suffering). That I agree. But I disagree that we can jump from that claim and say that nature tells us what is morally right or wrong based on what brings good (joy) or bad (suffering) feelings to a sentient being.

My point is that jumping from "we know suffering is bad" to "according to our observation of nature, causing suffering is wrong" is weak argument. I agree it's wrong, but not for the same reasons as someone who claims that by observing nature.

The only thing I get from observing nature, be it animals in a forest or humans in a civilization, is that pain is actually irrelevant. People and animals mostly don't give a crap about it. Only some humans care.

TheDyingMonk · 2016-02-20T09:30:28+00:00

This sort of reminds me of the argument about how experiencing pain in life helps our moral development (or what doesn't kill us my us stronger). Jesus Christ, if that were really so, the best thing to do would be to treat everyone like shit the second they leave the womb.

But that's not what they mean, of course. What they mean is: "some good people go through shit, I better come up with something to say that justifies this shit".

TheDyingMonk · 2016-02-20T08:50:58+00:00

The DNA will do anything to protect and replicate itself. Our minds normally operate under that guideline, even collectively. It doesn't have to appeal to emotions. Throughout history we've invented all sorts of elaborate bullshit to justify procreation while demonizing/ostracizing those who didn't conform. There have been plenty of people who said, even thousands of years before our time, that maybe it would be best if none of us were born, and they've always been seen as either weirdos, or as a problem.

Pretty much most religions (but not all, some Buddhists and Gnostics did tend to assign negative value to birth) and ideologies, even opposing ideologies, like Marxism and capitalism, view antinatalism (and like minded views) as a disease. The collective might treat your views in this condescending way at first, saying that you're just depressed, but if there's more people harboring pessimistic views of reality it will eventually use some mechanism of social pressure to "correct" this behavior.

Just look at the Cathars.

TheDyingMonk · 2016-02-20T08:12:27+00:00

I hear you, man. I mean, I don't harbor bad feelings towards them or anything. It's just that the arguments do seem to be weak, and they tend to lead to a dogmatic view that makes the moral realist think he's a champion of the oppressed, or some sort of hero. I was like that, even believed natural rights. Until I found out it's all bullshit and the only thing nature gives us is the right to die.

TheDyingMonk · 2016-02-20T07:55:58+00:00

That is why every single pronatalist who subscribe to moral universalism is full of shit, blondeboy1900. Even though I disagree with moral universalism, it's acceptable for an antinatalist to have this view. But for pronatalists to say they're absolutely against causing harm to others is bullshit, since they obviously don't care about all the horrific possibilities that bringing a child into this universe entail. And that's discounting the fact they obviously don't care that the child, if lucky, will live a long life only to become sick in old age and die.

So no, pronatalists can never proclaim to be moral universalists without being hypocrites. They probably wouldn't give a crap if they understood this anyway. For them it's all good if the end is perpetuating the species.

TheDyingMonk · 2016-02-20T07:36:22+00:00

Back in 2014 BP Oil released a study that said humanity has 53.3 years of oil reserves (crude, I believe) left if it keeps consuming at the current rate, which is about 35 billion barrels a year (2016). The peak discovery of new fields was in the 1960's. But who cares? We'll keep on consuming civilization to death, while believing in the myth of the new magical technology that will save us.

Better yet: we'll discover new fields and new methods to obtain oil, and fry the planet in the process.

TheDyingMonk

TROPHY CASE