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SvetlanaButosky t1_j9eah3r wrote

According to some pro death and extinction philosophies, these are their arguments that cannot be countered, because its perfectly logical and moral (they claim):

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  1. Nobody asked to be born into a risky world with suffering, since consent is an absolute moral code, this means nobody should procreate because this violates consent that cannot be given (by the unborn).
  2. Since the world is a perpetual trolley problem with guaranteed victims of great suffering, then it is morally wrong for us to continue existing at the expense of these victims. The moral thing to do would be to not exist at all and prevent any and all possible future victims, meaning we should blow up the earth or something similar.
  3. Animals suffer from the same problem, so they should be blown up together with the planet, to prevent future suffering.
  4. A suffering free utopia of the future is very unlikely and even if we could achieve it, it would take many generations of sufferers, so its morally unjustifiable.
  5. There are no greater moral value than 100% prevention of all suffering, life exist just to avoid suffering, thus to go extinct, blow up earth or go full Thanos would be the best goal to achieve for all living things.

What is your counters to these "uncounterable" arguments? lol

/u/existentialgoof

Would like your input as well.

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HeinrichWolfman t1_j9g308v wrote

I seem to remember you were preoccupied with issues surrounding anti-natalism. In any case, in regards to your questions, I'll bite.

  1. 'Nobody asked to be born into a risky world with suffering', too late. No refunds.

  2. Did you (as in, the person making these arguments) obtain consent to blow up earth?

  3. I'll take a leaf from Peter Singer's book, by which he suggests we ought to consider the interests of animals. I don't think it is in their interests to be blown up, as is the case with being made into hamburgers either.

  4. Suffering is a part of the human condition, along with happiness. Although, I would say, there is an onus to prevent foreseeable suffering, the kind of utopia you describe is not possible, in my opinion.

  5. Did Thanos obtain consent when he killed half the world's population?

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xxxmercylll t1_j9ioiyj wrote

I like this rebuttal, but you can go back and forth on both sides for eternity. Humans are selfish in nature. We birth (mostly) at our own convenience. The babe didn't ask to be a product of convenience, but it happened any way. Suffering is the cause of growth. If the world was to be erased of all suffering. Everyone would be objectively the same.

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HeinrichWolfman t1_j9jtak4 wrote

Many thanks for the reply. Don't get me wrong, I like philosophical pessimism, and believe there is some merit to the ideas. On the other hand there are criticisms too. For instance, you can't objectively make the claim that there is more suffering in the world than there is happiness (as Schopenhauer seems to suggest). We have no metric to measure these things, even though I am sympathetic to Schopenhauer's ideas.

Needless to say, in usual fashion, I will list my views on the subject at hand. I feel there is some scope here for discussion.

A) Humans are selfish in nature, but also compassionate. If we are to make statements from observations, we must make honest and clear observations.

B) A foetus cannot give consent to be born. I feel this is a fallacy of the whole argument. Only when an individual becomes an adult are they able to assess the issues at hand in a serious fashion. In order for consent to be given, they need to have grown into an adult, and have developed faculties. This requires them to be born.

C) A great deal of suffering can also be caused when an individual isn't given the opportunity to have children.

D) I also feel there is a distinction to be made from advocating people to not have children, and killing people (in the example given, of blowing up earth). Indeed both actions may be deemed callous and are achieving similar ends, it must be noted they are simply not the same thing.

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AnUntimelyGuy t1_j9j526y wrote

I consider myself an anti-natalist but also an amoralist. I do not use any moral argument to defend my anti-natalist position, but instead put forward what I care about and what this entails. In this way, I care most about strangers whose suffering is so extreme, prolonged and awful that their lives might be considered fates worse than death; subjectively so, from both their own and my own point of view. I still care about other people, almost universally, but the top of my priorities are people (and animals) in extreme suffering whose existences I would rather see prevented.

I do not know if this is a unique psychological quirk I have, or if other people can be convinced of the same, but I really cannot stand the thought of even a single individual leading a life of extreme suffering and mostly tearful existence; each life of predominant suffering can be considered a universe of horrors on its own. But consider the scale of suffering on Earth: this planet is estimated to be able to sustain life for a maximum of another billion years. This undeniably means at least billions, but realistically trillions, of humans and animals who will need to endure horrifying lives, even according to most standards. Even if most individuals lead happy lives, these billions or trillions of predominantly miserable lives are what I would like to prevent at their very root.

That said, I value the lives of myself, my friends and family higher than mere strangers. But if I was completely selfless and had no friends and family, I would want the erasure of all life on this planet out of simple altruism. The reason I can consider myself an anti-natalist despite being partially selfish, as well as not willing to sacrifice my friends and family, is that the lifeless world I want would likely take centuries to achieve. And even then, a small retinue of humanity would likely need to continue existing, only to prevent the undeniable horrors of Darwinian evolution to kick-start once again.

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