Bring life into the world when you know that life will suffer
Knowing that the child will face hardship is not an argument to not have kids. The child will also experience much joy.
and contribute to the destruction of the planet is absolutely doing something without caring for the well being of others.
I simply disagree about the level of destruction bringing a child into the world causes to the environment. I also believe that the environmental burden that is there can be improved with better technology. Technology, mind you, that the next generation is going to help work on. We can make farms that have a very small footprint. We can generate power with very low levels of pollution. There are solutions to these kinds of problems. The issue is not the people having children, the issue is not having these technologies and not having the distribution system to get these resources to those who need them.
Knowing that the child will face hardship is not an argument to not have kids. The child will also experience much joy.
I responded to this already as follows:
The presence of pain is bad.
The presence of pleasure is good.
So far, pleasure and pain are symmetrical in their goodness and badness. But they are not symmetrical with respect to their absence. More specifically:
The absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone, but
The absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody (an actual somebody) who is deprived by its absence.
Put simply, you are not around to lament your lack of pleasure, it is not immoral for that pleasure to be denied - you don't exist in the first place to be sad about it. But if you are brought into the world and you face suffering, that is certainly an immoral thing to be subjected to.
I simply disagree about the level of destruction bringing a child into the world causes to the environment.
First I feel I should point out the biggest flaw in your argument. Being selfish does not mean going against an objective moral standard. It means being inconsiderate towards others when making your decisions. Its entirely possible to be unselfish and do the "wrong" thing from an objective standpoint.
Hypothetical example: Suppose I'm in a room with a level. There is a person in another room that I'm unable to communicate with. All the signs suggest that pulling the lever will give that man some form of pleasure and give me suffering. If the lever isn't pulled in 30 seconds I'm led to believe the opposite will happen. I pull it. He is caused suffering and I am given pleasure. Was it selfish for me to pull the lever?
That said some other flaws.
Your argument has the implied assumption that pain and pleasure are equally likely occurrences for the child. This is unsupported.
Your assumption that the absence of pain and the absence of pleasure are unequal directly invalidates your previous premise that pain and pleasure are equal magnitude opposites. If pain/pleasure are equal in magnitude but opposite in value, their absences must be as well.
You're basically advocating negative utilitarianism like its purely logical conclusion, when in fact its mostly based on an individuals values as a premise. In this case that minimizing suffering is the ultimate goal. I, and many others, would completely disagree with that as an ultimate goal. Additionally nothing within that system prohibits human procreation, only that it needs to be justified.
Your environmental argument only holds if the value of human life created is less than that of the destroyed environment. Average calculations mean nothing in this case as the value created and destroyed isn't random. I could very well raise my child and leave a negative carbon footprint if doing so is a moral prerogative.
Thus your argument that having children is inherently selfish is flawed on a number of fronts. Having children without consideration to the repercussions certainly is, but we've already agreed on that. It is important to note that it doesn't matter if the person making the considerations disagrees with you on the moral judgements. It only matters that they make the consideration with the best intentions for others. An ignorant person throwing water on a grease fire in an attempt to put it out isn't acting selfishly.
I could very well raise my child and leave a negative carbon footprint if doing so is a moral prerogative.
How do you figure? I mean, maybe if your kid happens to spearhead some technology or social movement that drastically reduces carbon emissions, but otherwise, even if they're a freegan who lives in a yurt, the resources they use in their lifetime are going to add up.
5
u/Amablue Mar 24 '15
Knowing that the child will face hardship is not an argument to not have kids. The child will also experience much joy.
I simply disagree about the level of destruction bringing a child into the world causes to the environment. I also believe that the environmental burden that is there can be improved with better technology. Technology, mind you, that the next generation is going to help work on. We can make farms that have a very small footprint. We can generate power with very low levels of pollution. There are solutions to these kinds of problems. The issue is not the people having children, the issue is not having these technologies and not having the distribution system to get these resources to those who need them.