Jim B. wrote:Not all deprivations are bad. But some bad things are deprivations.
And some bad things are presences. And not all good things are either all presences or all absences. But if you're really hung up on associating presence with good and absence with evil, then you'll do the necessary nipping and tucking to maintain the analogy.
In his article "Death," Thomas Nagel uses the scenario of a man suddenly transformed into having the mental life of a three month old infant who nevertheless is perfectly content. Assuming all his needs can be met and he lives out the rest of his days perfectly content but never advancing mentally, has a bad thing happened to him? If so, what exactly is that bad thing?
Nagel's an interesting guy! He's about as controversial as Rorty, or Feyerabend. I think he has the same kind of contrarian character. I have a copy of Mind and Cosmos that I'm squaring around to reading one of these days.
Right. There has to be, or have been, a someone there in the first place. But looked at collectively, antinatalism could make sense. If the world becomes an irredeemable shit hole with utterly no hope of improvement, then not procreating could become a moral obligation because of all the suffering one is preventing.
I think it takes a lot less than utter hopelessness. Look what's happened to the Japanese birth rate. How are we ever going to have our intergalactic empire if people stop making babies whenever the economy takes a shit?
One of the hallmarks of freedom is that when you recognize someone is being intellectually dishonest or arguing with you in bad faith, you have the option to walk away without being punished, imprisoned or tortured.