Philanthropic Antinatalism, while not a popular position on the internet, is one of the three main strands of antinatalism as a whole and must be dealt with. The position that it is better that humanity not be because humanity is good and existence is bad has been advanced by Patrick Benatar. At first Benatar's metaethical imperative to avoid causing suffering seems appealing. And it is, initially at least, hard to argue that suffering is a part of being is also hard to argue. But it is these very premises that must be deconstructed(I am here using the phrase "deconstructed" in it's normal sense, not in the sense used by obscurantist deconstructionists like De Man and Deleuze)
First off what are these "metaethical imperatives" Benatar speaks of but Deontology, a philosophy that has been shown to be very faulty by Professor Sam Harris a leading expert in both neuroscience and moral philosophy. As Harris showed, brainscanning technology like MRI machines are the center of information for our moral universe, and "suffering" is something that has yet to be shown in an MRI machine, when all that can be found is specific pains. No "suffering" to speak of! Further more Benatar's use of philosophical terminology would likely be laughed at by Sam Harris who said:
I am convinced that every appearance of terms like "metaethics," "deontology," "noncognitivism," "anti-realism," "emotivism," and the like, directly increases the amount of boredom in the universe.
Moreover, while antinatalists speak if "being" do they really have a good grasp of what it means? Languages like Russian, Ainu, and Arabic do quite well avoiding the use of words like "be" and "is" and created languages like E-Prime actively seek to avoid it. The philosopher Quine famously said "To be is to be the value of a variable", and an Amazon commenter insightfully says of Benatar's book
I haven't read the whole book, so I might have missed something but I fail to see how you can harm someone who doesn't exist.
Very wise, and a statement antinatalists would do well to pay attention to.
Your conclusion is factually wrong. Antinatalists do not compare a non-existing person to an existing person, but a state of the world where there is no person X to a state of the world where there is a person X. I already covered that in my complete debunking of the Non-Identity Problem.
ReplyDeletehttp://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/the-non-identity-problem/
The basic stance of philanthropic antinatalism is that it is morally wrong to procreate given that doing so inevitably imposes needless suffering (pain/sorrow/sickness/boredom/longing) onto that child. Of course, one must first be empathetic and value preventing suffering for any of this to matter, otherwise there would be no moral imperative. I really don't think anything you've written in this post counters the fact that suffering is inherent to life, and that it is imposed with every new birth. Also, do you think suffering is bad?
ReplyDeleteWRONG! Suffering is not inherent to life. People with nerve disorders, non-sentient animals, plants, and braindead people do not experience suffering. These counterexamples are TRIVIALLY easy to come up with.
DeleteSorry I should have specified, I was referring to sentient lifeforms, such as non-braindead humans. You are right that not all lifeforms suffer. That said, would you agree that suffering is an inherent part of sentient life, and do you think it's bad to impose that through procreation?
DeleteWrong! As I said before, perfectly sentient people with disorders that do not allow pain sensors do NOT feel pain. AND, it is impossible to impose something on someone who does not exist.
DeleteBut, as Francois Tremblay told me, antinatalists do not make the trivial mistake of comparing an existent to a non-existent, but compare a state of affairs with someone to a state of affairs without someone. So I simply have no idea why you are using the misleading term "impose"
This is probably going to be my last comment. First, if someone is unable to feel pain then how would they classify as "perfectly sentient", as their inability to feel pain would certainly be an abnormality. Next, the imposition of life occurs simultaneously with birth (not before it), so your argument is really a matter of semantics. Also, given the fact that the nonexistent cannot give consent as to whether or not they would want to be born and under what circumstances, procreation is always an imposition (it is forced). Hope this helps in addressing your issues with the philosophy.
DeleteWhat an astounding failure! You tried to duck non-identity with the "at moment of birth" thing before falling right into it with the bits about non-existent consent. I should write a blogpost about the vulgar antinatalism these people seem to be bugging me with lately!
Delete"As I said before, perfectly sentient people with disorders that do not allow pain sensors do NOT feel pain."
DeleteThere are other unavoidable ways of suffering that do not require the ability to feel pure physical pain.
"WRONG! Suffering is not inherent to life. People with nerve disorders, non-sentient animals, plants, and braindead people do not experience suffering. These counterexamples are TRIVIALLY easy to come up with."
ReplyDeleteDo you really think that the tiny chance of your child being born brain-dead or having a nerve disorder makes procreation better than it would be if this possibility did not exist?
You CLEARLY missed the last post of my blog, where I admitted that antinatalism was clearly correct and true the whole time, and that this blog is now just a testament to my intellectual odyssey.
Delete