If we’re going to entertain non-existent people who don’t want to exist, we are obligated to consider non-existent people who do want to exist.
People who are happy to be alive does not “pay” for bringing someone unhappy into existence. In fact if you really think that you can justify all sorts of morally reprehensible things.
But that isn’t precisely my point.
Let me repeat: No one consents to being born. You cannot ask someone ahead of time if they’d like to be born. Any person born owes absolutely nothing to their parents and almost nothing to everyone else other than basic respect. Until of course they themselves give birth, and then they owe an infinite and unpayable debt to their children.
Even if your child is perfectly content being alive throughout their life, they did not choose to be here. You brought them here and thus you still owe them a debt.
People who are happy to be alive does not “pay” for bringing someone unhappy into existence.
How are you evaluating happiness absent existence? Hell, how are you evaluating happiness, period?
Even if your child is perfectly content being alive throughout their life, they did not choose to be here.
How do you reach that conclusion? We’re all just bits of matter, assembled in various shapes and configurations.
He was here before he was born as matter. He’ll be here after he’s dead as matter. All life has given him is senses to perceive his surroundings and agency to affect them.
Are you arguing a given child would be better off inert? Are blindness, deafness, and paralysis virtues?
People who are happy to be alive does not “pay” for bringing someone unhappy into existence. In fact if you really think that you can justify all sorts of morally reprehensible things.
But that isn’t precisely my point.
Let me repeat: No one consents to being born. You cannot ask someone ahead of time if they’d like to be born. Any person born owes absolutely nothing to their parents and almost nothing to everyone else other than basic respect. Until of course they themselves give birth, and then they owe an infinite and unpayable debt to their children.
Even if your child is perfectly content being alive throughout their life, they did not choose to be here. You brought them here and thus you still owe them a debt.
How are you evaluating happiness absent existence? Hell, how are you evaluating happiness, period?
How do you reach that conclusion? We’re all just bits of matter, assembled in various shapes and configurations.
He was here before he was born as matter. He’ll be here after he’s dead as matter. All life has given him is senses to perceive his surroundings and agency to affect them.
Are you arguing a given child would be better off inert? Are blindness, deafness, and paralysis virtues?
Because… inert matter doesn’t make decisions…
As long as you accept the premise that some people are happy and some people are unhappy, I don’t think measuring it for precision matters.
They wouldn’t be a child if they were never born to begin with.
Why is that good?
The claim is that people who experience unhappiness shouldn’t exist. Why would I accept a precisionless “unhappy” on these terms?
They would still exist as something. Children don’t appear ex nihilio.
Your argument isn’t for non-existence. It is for non-sentience.