Fallible wrote:Yeah, small problem there. Parents don't generally deliberately do something to ensure that one of their offspring will die before they procreate. Frankly I'd like you to take your ham fisted 'examples' and Eeyore quotes and shove them back up the chuff from whence they came, and where they clearly belong.

No, they have children knowing what kind of world this is and what the risks are.

The point of the poisoned cake example is the intuition that we thinking risking creating even one poison victim is not mitigated by the presence of lots more happy people. The intuition is no that you deliberately poisoned someone but that you gambled with their life.

It is surprising that there is so much inequality and suffering considering how well intentioned parents are being presented as here.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

Thommo wrote:

Yep, telling parents to their face that what they are doing is like putting people in concentration camps

I never said that anywhere ironically. That is how someone chose to misrepresent my post.

AHEM.

Andrew4Handel wrote:One of my key issues is I see no good reason for having children. I think if you see a reason for having children then you obviously are going to want to make a society and work out its rules. But I don't think there is a good defence for having children so once you have done that your values are already on shaky ground.

It is a bit like someone wanting to make an efficient concentration camp. It may well be possible but then we would question the need for the camp and its desirability.

We only need an attempt at morality because we keep creating new humans and have lots of problems to combat.

You directly liken the two things, even using the exact bloody word.

Andrew4Handel wrote:
People on here have undermined any claim that they are nice people

You should be grateful members here have taken the time to address your points with the seriousness
they deserve. You are just unhappy they do not agree with you. You may argue whether they are nice
or not [ although I am the last person to be asking ] but they are actually genuine. And so thank them
for their honesty and patience. Which given the repetitive nature of your threads is asking quite a lot

Thommo wrote:

Andrew4Handel wrote:One of my key issues is I see no good reason for having children. I think if you see a reason for having children then you obviously are going to want to make a society and work out its rules. But I don't think there is a good defence for having children so once you have done that your values are already on shaky ground.

It is a bit like someone wanting to make an efficient concentration camp. It may well be possible but then we would question the need for the camp and its desirability.

We only need an attempt at morality because we keep creating new humans and have lots of problems to combat.

You directly liken the two things, even using the exact bloody word.

No there is no way that says that.

That says trying make a good society is like trying to make an efficient concentration camp without assessing the basic premises.

It was in no way a personal attack on anyone..

Spearthrower wrote:

Andrew4Handel wrote:Moral nihilism is the default position until someone makes a valid moral claim.

You don't have to prove moral nihilism. Moral Nihilism is a subclass of moral scepticism.

Nope.

"Moral skepticism divides into three subclasses: moral error theory (or moral nihilism)(..)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_skepticism

Andrew4Handel wrote:

THWOTH wrote:
Why would one seek to make parents responsible for the random maladies of their children? Do you think the sins of the parents are visited on their children, and on their children's children, unto the seventh generation or something.

Say if I had a congenital disorder that rendered me progressively blind, would that be my parents fault along any difficult I might face in my life as a result? Or would it just be 'one of those things', a function of the interplay of circumstance, chance, and genetics? Why would I hold my parents accountable for that which they neither desired nor had any influence over?

I have said earlier that parents are causally essential for the future suffering of their child. I don't take risks with other peoples lives.

Yes, parents (or at least their genetic material) have a necessary causal role in conception and, in particular, a mother plays a necessary role in gestation. But what I'm trying to tease out of you here is the 'Whys' and 'Hows' of your general proscription against human procreation based on the parents being responsible for the suffering (in whatever form that might take) of the beings they play a necessary role in bringing to existence.

You say that parents are "causally essential for the future suffering of their children", but this statement is of a different order to simply saying that parents are necessary for the existence of their children, it suggests that parents play an active role in, and thus carry a direct responsibility for, the causation of their childrens' suffering (in whatever form that might take). So; why and how?

Andrew4Handel wrote:My brother has the aggressive form of MS that has left him largely paralysed. (He can blink and slightly nod his head) I don't blame my parents for that in the same way as I blame them for giving us an abusive religious childhood. It is simply a risk I would not want to take by having a child. Before my brothers illness I didn't know anyone this seriously ill at a young age (or older). It wasn't something I needed to think about.

This does not address the issue, but it's worth pointing out that any parent with a congenital disorder and/or who has had to wait on the results of an amniocentesis test are faced with the dilemma of what to do if the results are less than favourable.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Now I know it is a real possibility that a child of mine could succumb to an array of problems. I am not willing to gamble on someone's well being.

OK. That's a choice that you're entitled to make - but you have gone further than ruling parenthood out for yourself, you have advocated a general proscription against human procreation, so my question is: How is any of this relevant to that?

Andrew4Handel wrote:I could understand having children more if there were less people on the planet, less environmental damage etc. It is bringing children into THIS world which is the most problematic to me.

What other world is there to bring children into? Why should it be necessary for this world to conform to our personal ideals as a necessary condition for procreation?

Andrew4Handel wrote:

Thommo wrote:

Andrew4Handel wrote:One of my key issues is I see no good reason for having children. I think if you see a reason for having children then you obviously are going to want to make a society and work out its rules. But I don't think there is a good defence for having children so once you have done that your values are already on shaky ground.

It is a bit like someone wanting to make an efficient concentration camp. It may well be possible but then we would question the need for the camp and its desirability.

We only need an attempt at morality because we keep creating new humans and have lots of problems to combat.

You directly liken the two things, even using the exact bloody word.

No there is no way that says that.

That says trying make a good society is like trying to make an efficient concentration camp without assessing the basic premises.

It was in no way a personal attack on anyone..

Can you keep two posts in a row straight please? As I already pointed out I didn't say anything about personal attacks.

You literally say the two situations are "a bit like" one another. You use the word I said you did, then complain it misrepresents you because it's not a personal attack. Completely overlooking the irony that in order to accuse me of misrepresenting you, you have to misrepresent me. Here's what I said:-

Thommo wrote:Yep, telling parents to their face that what they are doing is like putting people in concentration camps, an idea that you refused to discuss or justify repeatedly is clearly a "general position" rather than a "personal attack" and a "logical" consequence of moral nihilism*. Not that I actually mentioned personal attacks anyway...

Whether deliberately or accidentally we're now involved in yet another round of your evasiveness, with the point getting well and truly lost in the constant shifting of goalposts.

This is very, very tiresome. If you don't want the advice you asked for on getting more people to be nice to you, just ignore it. Don't try to rebut basic things that we learnt in primary school like "people are nicer to you when you're nicer to them" unless you're happy to look like a complete prat.

I never told parents to their face that what they are doing is like putting people in concentration camps.


I compared making a better society to making a more efficient concentration camp.

However I do personally think it is appalling to have children. There is not really a pleasant way of making that point.

If people were so confident in the rightness of them having children I don't see why they would feel so upset by a random stranger on the internet with an alternate opinion.

THWOTH wrote:
You say that parents are "causally essential for the future suffering of their children", but this statement is of a different order to simply saying that parents are necessary for the existence of their children, it suggests that parents play an active role in, and thus carry a direct responsibility for, the causation of their children's' suffering (in whatever form that might take). So; why and how?

I am saying essential to emphasize that the suffering that happens to the child is not divorced from the initial decision to create that child. You seem to want to say that if the cause of the child suffering is very obscure then it becomes detached from the initial cause of them being created.

A person has the ability to suffer soon after they are born. But maybe they only suffer badly at 70. I think it is an illusion to think that there is a quasi magical point at which someone is no longer conceptually related to their parents actions. Whether that is in terms of becoming responsible for all their actions at a certain point or by a physical harm being some obscure and unrelated to the initial conditions that it seems unrelated to them. I have nonetheless also differentiated between intentions and causes. Intending to hurt your child and causing your child to be hurt aren't the same thing. You don't have to have bad intentions to cause harm.

OK. That's a choice that you're entitled to make - but you have gone further than ruling parenthood out for yourself, you have advocated a general proscription against human procreation, so my question is: How is any of this relevant to that?

I don't know what you mean. My point is that living with someone with an awful illness has made me develop a general rule that risking anyone succumbing to this is unacceptable. Sometimes and possibly most of the time having these experiences directly is the only thing that makes you fully aware. Going to prison had that effect on me as well. I had no idea what that was like before I went their.

What other world is there to bring children into? Why should it be necessary for this world to conform to our personal ideals as a necessary condition for procreation?

Hypothetically with a universe as big as ours and the suggested multiverses their are a huge number of inhabitable planets that might offer a better life than ours.

I don't think people are having children because they think this is the only possible world. If someone proved there was a planet an unreachable distance away that had an idyllic lifestyle I doubt people would stop having children here. People having children for their own benefit not not increase overall pleasure.

The idea of increasing overall pleasure is incoherent (utilitarianism) because pleasure resides in individuals consciousness not in the world at large. I think any calculations you try to make in favour of adding children to the world would be dubious.

I get the impression people want to have children to improve their life (by having someone to have a special bond with etc..). that sounds initially fair enough when you take it out of the wider context. The sadness I might feel for not having children would be overridden by the relief that I didn't contribute towards their unhappiness or wider inequality.

There is a difference between criticising someone after they have had children and trying to stop someone from having children. My position is aimed it convincing people not to have children.

It seem the people most upset have already had children.

If someone showed me pictures of the Holocaust after I had children and said "This is a terrible world to bring children in" There is nothing I could do about it.

However if I planned to have children and someone did the same thing it would be evidence I could consider to inform my decision. To me those kind of things like famine war and genocide are good evidence to dissuade me and others from having children. I would not consider someone showing me this evidence as attacking me maliciously. I am just surprised people have children after seeing evidence that counts in favour of not procreating.

Shrunk wrote:
By the way, did we ever clear up that issue about the guy who pretended to be an atheist on the RDF board, and then pretended he was going to commit suicide? I could still swear that actually happened, but does no one else remember it?

"False memory is the psychological phenomenon in which a person recalls a memory that did not actually occur"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory

Rich false memories are (...) attempts to plant entire memories of events that never happened in participants' memories. Examples of such memories include fabricated stories (..)...often rely on suggestive interviews and the power of suggestion from family members, known as “familial informant false narrative procedure


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_effect

Andrew4Handel wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:
I think that's little more than a trick. On the view you offer, the epistemological role of this practical authority is taken up by our own discerning of proper function and the ontological role by the sum of a natural teleology. The authoritativeness of the goals or purposes got out of a natural teleology, as opposed to the ones just dreamed up out of nowhere, is precisely what is supposed to recommend the view. Or am I to take it that this teleological view does not give us a way of discerning authoritative moral claims from non-authoritative ones?

I illustrated my general point with the Quote from Ogden and Richards.

"When we use it in the sentence, ''This is good,'' we merely refer to this, and the addition of ''is good'' makes no difference whatever to our reference""

Should I take the word of Ogden and Richards? You never quoted them at me, so I'm not sure what I was supposed to take from a reference you gave to someone else. Did you quote them to advance your case or merely because they phrase your case as you would like to phrase it or both?

Andrew4Handel wrote:This position is saying that words like "Good" and "wrong" etc. don't refer to anything. In the teleology example right and wrong can refer to things. The issue of authority is a separate issue.

How separate are these for you, really? Your position was that a realistic morality has to be teleological or it falters and this is made apparent, I think, by that the religious picture looked like this. But does a morality not also have to be authoritative at a similar pain of faltering? You've suggested so previously - that moral claims have to have an arbiter or authority. But then, your point about the religious narrative giving an illusory picture was supposed to hinge on teleology. How did the converse Christian moral picture give that same illusion without such a teleology? And if it did, we've lost yet another motivation to think that teleology is important to our moral claims.

But regardless, look, you're still begging the question. You acknowledge that if we have a teleology then somehow what usually wouldn't refer suddenly would, but this is because you think that teleology is the proper way to fill out an account of moral facts. And, given that you don't think such a teleology can be meaningful with the advent of evolution, you believe that there is no way to fill out an account of moral facts. But that teleology is the only worthwhile realist stance to take to an account of moral facts is precisely what I've taken issue with previously and at length. It's unmotivated. You haven't been able to make a case for it.

Andrew4Handel wrote:There is a way to link the two in that when a human designs something they become the authority on its teleology.

Small point, but it's easy to imagine a human designing something and yet that that thing's proper function being such through further discovery that a person who hasn't designed said thing becomes a more competent authority on its teleology that its original designer..

Andrew4Handel wrote:By the way I am not advocating any form of morality because I don't think any moral theory is correct. So I don't see where my positive moral claim has been.

You can say that you're not advocating a first-order moral theory, but you clearly have been advocating a second-order metaethical view: that there are no moral facts, that such and such a moral term does not refer, that moral claims are teleological or non-cognitive or error-theoretic, etc.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

Andrew4Handel wrote:Moral nihilism is the default position until someone makes a valid moral claim.

You don't have to prove moral nihilism. Moral Nihilism is a subclass of moral scepticism.

Nope.

"Moral skepticism divides into three subclasses: moral error theory (or moral nihilism)(..)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_skepticism

Andrew, the moral skepticism that bears less of a burden than other positions is Pyrrhonian moral skepticism. It looks closer to the sort of atheism that people here have but about morals instead. And there is still a burden, depending on how it's framed or phrased. What you've been defending is non-cognitivism, something like Mackie's error theory or at least a dogmatic moral skepticism. Those are not moral skepticisms in the same sense and they share as much of a burden as other substantive moral views.

Andrew4Handel wrote:The idea that people should not have children is a general position not a personal attack as is moral nihilism.

I see it as a personal attack. It's none of your business why I chose to have the children I did, and why I wanted to have more. I had enough people telling me reasons why I had "too many" kids, and why, potentially, the results of my having had four children would bring hundreds of descendants after me, putting pressure on the world's already heavy resources. I told them they were wrong, and I'm telling you again, it's none of your business but, now I can say that they WERE wrong. I had four children. Of those, one has two sons, the other one daughter. The other two: one has fostered three children, who are now adults, and far better people for having been influenced by him. He would have been a spectacular father, but his autism, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and sexual orientation made him "unsuitable" to the women his age who would have had a wonderful life married to him, if they had only given him a chance. The next son has decided that because of population issues, he and his wife will adopt a child, rather than have their own, because of her own peculiar background she feels that they will be able to help an "unwanted" child achieve a good life because he/she happens to be chosen to be in our family. So don't tell me that my population imprint has been a heavy one. My and their father's fertility brought one generation of men, but replaced them in the next generation with only three more people, one less than they were in their generation. So to the people who complained about my "over-population" my numbers were reduced, as were my parents, who had six of their own, and one adopted, and three fostered children. The adopted child, and one of my parents' own children, died. Of the rest, they were replaced by more childless families, and adopted/fostered children. You see when you make stupid claims about "over-population" you're forgetting that if you don't want your own, and if you have something good to offer, you can take on "unwanted" children instead.

I am not going to compromise my honest positions for the sake of not upsetting people

I'm not upset. You're not important enough to upset me. I'm dumbstruck that you prefer to wallow in self-pity rather than look at the chance you were given. Of all the millions of sperm that raced for the egg that made you, you won. You bloody won that race. You were given a one in a million chance to live a life on this planet at this time, and you choose to waste it in self-pity and negativity. Admit that is what you're doing and stop lecturing us about our choices to make the world a better place for the children we brought into it, or the ones we chose to make part of our lives.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

Fallible wrote:Yeah, small problem there. Parents don't generally deliberately do something to ensure that one of their offspring will die before they procreate. Frankly I'd like you to take your ham fisted 'examples' and Eeyore quotes and shove them back up the chuff from whence they came, and where they clearly belong.

No, they have children knowing what kind of world this is and what the risks are.

What do you mean 'no'? That's nothing like your poisoned cupcake 'example'

The point of the poisoned cake example is the intuition that we thinking risking creating even one poison victim is not mitigated by the presence of lots more happy people.

If that was the point, you should have chosen something which was actually analogous to the situation you were attempting to argue.

The intuition is no that you deliberately poisoned someone but that you gambled with their life.

And as such it was stupid, since the two situations are not the same. Deliberately adding a cyanide capsule to someone's cake is not the same as having a child. Just accept it.

It is surprising that there is so much inequality and suffering considering how well intentioned parents are being presented as here.

No it isn't.

Andrew4Handel wrote:It seem the people most upset have already had children.

Several things wrong with this. Firstly, nobody's fucking upset, they just think you're talking through your arse. Again. Secondly, you seem to have overlooked the simple fact that having children takes time, and people who have children can have more. Finally, it doesn't matter what situation people are in when they react to your terminally irrelevant drivel, and your imputing motives based on your total lack of expertise is dishonest.

This is why you receive the reception do. You don't discuss in good faith. You're nothing more than a concern troll.

Andrew4Handel wrote:I never told parents to their face that what they are doing is like putting people in concentration camps.


I compared making a better society to making a more efficient concentration camp.

However I do personally think it is appalling to have children. There is not really a pleasant way of making that point.

If people were so confident in the rightness of them having children I don't see why they would feel so upset by a random stranger on the internet with an alternate opinion.

No, I don't see why something I just made up would happen either.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

Thommo wrote:

If you spend your time telling other people they are worthless, immoral, irrational and unintelligent they often don't respond well.

I have done none of the above. Moral nihilism is not telling people they are immoral it is arguing that no moral claims are true. I have not said anyone is worthless I have said that life seems meaningless and we shouldn't propagate it . It has taken the form of a lengthy argument and not the dishonest way you are portraying it.

If you spend your time telling other people how great and well educated you are and how much better that makes the things you say

This is a serious misrepresentation of what has happened. People repeatedly make non constructive attacks on my post and my ability to reason so I pointed out I have a degree which involved having to reason accurately.

If you ignore large portions of the more thoughtful things people say to you then people often don't respond well.

I am one person responding to ten or more people and I have written long responses to a lot of things. Disagreeing with people is not ignoring them.

Putting all that together, if you're feeling that you want more people to be nice to you

People on here have undermined any claim that they are nice people. I don't want this kind of person to be fake nice with me.

listen to and respect them. People like being listened to and respected and humans are great players of "tit for tat".

OMg purlezee vomit...It is reciprocal and you must be indulging in a seriously excessive fantasy if you think "listen and respect" is the motive on this forum.... it is gloat and degenerate the opposition.

Would you enjoy being told about how much smarter he is than you, how right he is and how wrong you are? How pointless your life is, how immoral you are, how irrational you are? Would you respond positively to such a person?

I can respond politely and patiently with anyone for as along as I feel like but your claim is an outrageous misrepresentation.
I have been very restrained on here most of the time.


Your whole post was incredible self serving Drivel Thommo. You should be ashamed of yourself.

The reality is people hate having their position robustly criticised.

:picard

This is why you can't have nice things, A4H

Andrew4Handel wrote:The idea that people should not have children is a general position not a personal attack as is moral nihilism.

It's not a personal attack, it's just fuck-bungled hysterical bollocks with a healthy side-dollop of Waaah.

Andrew4Handel wrote:I think all the personal abuse and hysterical responses on here just spoil whatever the arguments are.

So stop doing it then.

Andrew4Handel wrote:I am not going to compromise my honest positions for the sake of not upsetting people

Then stop expecting people to be nice to you - your 'honest' positions are idiotic, as in, not worth the time of day. You've been told this by a score of people more emotionally mature and intellectually honest than you can ever hope to achieve. The upset you cause is only to yourself.

Your positions compromise themselves but apparently you lack the capacity to notice - we're the helpful folk showing you how fuck-bungled hysterical they are.

Cry us up some more rivers.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

I have said earlier that parents are causally essential for the future suffering of their child. I don't take risks with other peoples lives.

Yes, you've asserted this still steaming from your rectum. Even for one lacking in any appreciable comprehension, the resolution of this would be clear: don't have kids.

But, don't commit an inductive fallacy - just because you cannot comprehend such notions as joy, worth, morality etc, that doesn't infer that others are so lacking.