Tough Question for Religious Orientated People

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Azazel

That's not so simple. Why do you have an obligation for the future generations? as with all ethics, due to reasons of utility/welfare/whatever.

Because we bring them into existence. Why are you responsible for the welfare of your children? Because you had them. If we chose not to have children that would not be immoral.

Not having that future generation means that this utility will not be there, that means less utility that means less ethical.

But that requires us to accept the whole utilitarian package, which I don't. Why must we worry about welfare per se, rather than the welfare of those who do or are likely to exist?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Supposing you met Bill Gates. Would you tell him not to have 11 children? Why or why not?

I would tell him no- it would make for very ugly squabbles over the leftovers of the fortune he leaves.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Azazel
That's the whole goddamn debate:

Does the next generation have a right to exist? of course not. Rights do not exist.

Rights are fundamental. However, they sometimes need balls, a spine, a strong right arm and a steady aim to secure or enforce them.

Would it be WRONG to prevent from the next generation to exist: yes, of course.

You're not preventing it from existing - they hypothetical phenomena that wiped out 99.99999998 of the population in a short period of time is what prevents the next generation's existence.

Would it be right to create such a next generation: Yes, obviouisly.

Neither right nor obvious. The creation of a "next generation" (actually, just some individual offspring you hope will be numerous and healthy enough to eventually establish a next generation.) is morally neutral in and of itself. The individual conduct that results in the attempt to create that next generation is subject to moral interpretation, not the mere existence or non-existence of that "next generation."

[Az]

Actually, the ability to conceptualize is what separates us, meaning man has, unlike any other naimals, the ability to imagine a world without himself as individual, or species, and perhaps even choose such an ending. Yes, we have a innate drive to spread our genes, but that is it, only OURS- the notion of spreading the species as well, that is a conception of MAN, not an inbuilt drive- other individuals of any other species could not give a crap about "the species", since they can;t even conceptulize that.

You're obviously right, but that doesn't change my point.

What importance? There is no importance to mankind surviving, anymore than there is any importance to mankind ending. Certainly in your mind it is critical, but not a universal notion, not when we get to this situation.

In that case, nothing is important. I am calling it important since a great ethical value is on the line.

The odds are stagerring: first, you may have a series of problems that make the woman less than fertile-for example, the simplest one-she happens to be 35 or so, near the end of her viable reproductive life...
The porblems with the males and thier reproductive fitness
Problems in childbirthing and rearing
An newly inhospitable environment perhaps
Lack of food and dangers of accidents

It is beyond me how any event that could lead to 99.9999% annahilation of any species would leave a situation hospitable for the rest. Do you honestly think that when those great mass extinctions occured every sinlge member of those species got hit? And yet, they didn;t make it back- half a billion years of vertebrate life shows that if you get to a point were 99.9999% die off, honestly there is NO coming back

I agree that this is a long shot but say it was the same conditions on a virgin earth, would you then change your mind? ( I still think that since we have nothing to lose, it's better to try ) The woman being 35, etc. are all possibilities, but if you're going for such a worst case scenario, might as well make them crippled below the neck, and the woman 89 years old.

Why will they be much less miserable? lets say this woman is raped repeatedly andf finally produces a female (accepting that baby boys born would have to have been killed of). Now, the womna can no longer have any babies- so she raises a daughter in the full knowledge that once she gets to 13 years of age, the rapes will start -unless somehow the girl luckily fell in love with someone-hopefully for genetic diversity not her father.

Is all sex a result of love, or rape? And btw, 13 is too young, me thinks. The risks are too great.

And then this one girl, unlike her mother who at least had some years in her life of not being a breeder, will spend the rest of her life (if it lasts long) as a breeder herself...yeah, much less suffering for the next generation....

a Breeder! god forbid that! She'll obviously suffer a lot all her life.
Look, I am not telling you that this is going to be easy, but I am telling you, it's better than just die.

Supposing you met Bill Gates. Would you tell him not to have 11 children? Why or why not?

Well, in our society, I wouldn't mind him having a rather large number of kids, but not as much as 11, since that's the point the parent-child contact begins to be rather impersonal, I think. I'd also recommend a homeless guy not to have any kids.

HOWEVER, this doesn't mean that this would be the case in the ideal society. Ideally, the number of people per couple, or whatever social structure it will possess will be more equal, since the government will provide with help.


****. It's 01:50 here. Signing out here. G'night.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Azazel
In that case, nothing is important. I am calling it important since a great ethical value is on the line.

What ethical value? Survival is not an ethical value whatsoever.

I agree that this is a long shot but say it was the same conditions on a virgin earth, would you then change your mind? ( I still think that since we have nothing to lose, it's better to try ) The woman being 35, etc. are all possibilities, but if you're going for such a worst case scenario, might as well make them crippled below the neck, and the woman 89 years old.

Nothing to lose? The guys raping perhaps- the woman being raped has a hell of a lot to loose- including possibly her life in childbirth. It is easy for the guys who bear NO RISK to talk about nothing to lose.

all sex a result of love, or rape? And btw, 13 is too young, me thinks. The risks are too great.

To maximize survival chances, you have to start as soon as possible..you say the risks are too great? Sorry, not an option- either you start after she 'bled' the first time, or it is obvious you passion for restoring mankind is not there. Remember, about 50% of pregnancies will be boys, and we have to go 9 motnhs and then kill the buggers and then try again to get her pregnant until we get one more female- and then more and more and as many as possible within her window of opportunity.

Look, I am not telling you that this is going to be easy, but I am telling you, it's better than just die.

Why? You will die, and the "inherent value" in the continuation of the species is a very fuszzy concept.

will wait for responses tommorrow.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

Rights are fundamental.

Uh... hardly.

What's the use of them? If you say that people will be worse off without them, then it is welfare which is fundamental.

If not, then rights have nothing to do with human well being, or they are quite magical.

If you say that they are mandated by God, then it's God's will that is fundamental (or God is not omnipotent, since he is subject to moral rules).

[JellyBean]

MtG - since you find the moral status of the society of our distant ancestors so unacceptable, do you believe that they should have behaved in a more restrained, less breeding-oriented fashion, thus possibly causing us in the modern day not to exist?

Now, a quick question for anyone - if you're a utilitarian (or a consequentialist, or something of that nature), and you get to choose or influence someone else's style of ethics (possibly by being responsible for their education), what should you choose?

A first thought is that you should encourage them to be utilitarian too, so that they will act in the same way that you do. But, what if they're not intelligent enough to extrapolate from their actions in the way that utilitarianism requires? In that case, you'd do better to inculcate in them a rights-based system of morals, which is at least a reasonable approximation to a utilitarian system in most situations.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by JellyBean
MtG - since you find the moral status of the society of our distant ancestors so unacceptable, do you believe that they should have behaved in a more restrained, less breeding-oriented fashion, thus possibly causing us in the modern day not to exist?

We don't have near enough information in the archaeological record to establish at what point our distant ancestors developed sufficient mental capacity for self-awareness, and whatever other objective cognitive conditions are necessary to develop or believe in any particular moral framework.

The next problem is that we don't know how these population groups operated - in reality, new "species" as we currently define them were very gradual modifications from existing individuals, so presumably they were part of established breeding populations, and the more successful individuals were better at propagating. That's the general process. We don't know the details, and we can assume that a great many small isolated population groups died off, just as we have observed with larger population groups such as the Anasazi in the southwest US desert, or the pre-Shoshonean natives in southern California.

Regardless of their actions, their intent was not to act "for the benefit of the master race (er, um, species)" it was most likely for individual benefit and/or instinctive. It most certainly was not intended for our benefit, or the benefit of any abstract future group.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


That isn't a reasonable assumption by any means. The amount of technology needed to keep a 6-month old premature baby alive far exceeds that needed for an abortion. For starters, there's the matter of electricity.

Az:

Again, you've not given any coherent reason why the survival of the human race is so important in this instance that it permits rape/murder. I'm assuming you don't approve of such things normally, so I'd like to get a consistent argument.

what about the amount needed to do a safe abortion where the mother will survive? France has some pretty interesting rules on what kind of equipment has to be on hand and ready to use whenever someone takes RU-486 for example.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Let's take this pleasant scenario even further. Let's say she has a female child and then dies. So you have one female, 12-13 years from puberty. You can raise that female, do everything possible to "protect" her since she's your only means of perpetuating the species, then systematically force breed her as often as she can physically take it.

To assure the greatest possible genetic variation in your limited remaining gene pool (and we know this is critical to long term survival from studies of Kilimanjaro crater lions and great apes in isolated gene pools), you have to breed her around with the healthiest men with the best genetic profile. Some of her kids will be male, thus useless. Some may be female, depending on the odds, how long she survives as breeding stock, etc. With each female, you have another 12-13 year wait before they can be bred. So for two generations, you're looking at 25-30 years, assuming you don't get a run of boys. Many of your original surviving males will have died off by then, maybe most or all, depending on the conditions on earth and their age and health.

Assuming everything goes your way, and all females born are fertile and survive until breeding age, you are attempting to reestablish a viable population based on essentially enslaving any females as breeding stock, raping them (by forced breeding with a variety of partners to gain the largest possible genetic diversity), and excluding some or many of the survinving males from any breeding opportunities. You've gone back to the cave days in terms of rights of females, you've destroyed any concept of familial relationships, and you have a limited population that is still critically inbred for many generations would be susceptible to many possible factors wiping out the "breeding stock."

Is this combination of murder, rape, slavery, and the fundamental destruction of familiar relationships and moral concepts of rights and behavior worth it, in the vague hope of maintaining the species survival? Count me out.

BTW, thanks for the condolences and good wishes, everyone.

In such a scenario we'll need your genetic diversity so we'll beat you up and force you to do it :P

Interbreeding doesn't become a problem for centuries, and given the fact that that there are many men(all of whom will not die off in the 25-30 year period, considering how long you can live if you take care of yourself) it might not be a problem at all.

Finally we are C-Sectioning the kid out at the last possible moment(unless someone could think of a reason for a 6 month pregnant woman to keel over because of the pregnancy right then and there).

[Whoha]

Originally posted by GePap


What ethical value? Survival is not an ethical value whatsoever.

I agree that this is a long shot but say it was the same conditions on a virgin earth, would you then change your mind? ( I still think that since we have nothing to lose, it's better to try ) The woman being 35, etc. are all possibilities, but if you're going for such a worst case scenario, might as well make them crippled below the neck, and the woman 89 years old.

Nothing to lose? The guys raping perhaps- the woman being raped has a hell of a lot to loose- including possibly her life in childbirth. It is easy for the guys who bear NO RISK to talk about nothing to lose.

all sex a result of love, or rape? And btw, 13 is too young, me thinks. The risks are too great.

To maximize survival chances, you have to start as soon as possible..you say the risks are too great? Sorry, not an option- either you start after she 'bled' the first time, or it is obvious you passion for restoring mankind is not there. Remember, about 50% of pregnancies will be boys, and we have to go 9 motnhs and then kill the buggers and then try again to get her pregnant until we get one more female- and then more and more and as many as possible within her window of opportunity.

Look, I am not telling you that this is going to be easy, but I am telling you, it's better than just die.

Why? You will die, and the "inherent value" in the continuation of the species is a very fuszzy concept.

will wait for responses tommorrow.

why kill male offspring?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Azazel
A)It's permissable to rape/kill people, under VERY VERY special consequences. These are those VERY VERY rare, VERY dire consequences. Just like it's legal for the president to order to shoot down a plane full of civilians, if he knows it's about to crash into a skyscraper, for example.

What you consider dire circumstances is different than what many others might consider such. Indeed, the Nazis earnestly believed the "Jewish problem" was a very dire problem. They also earnestly believed that by wiping out Jews/gypsies/gays, they were doing an ultimate good for the service of humanity. That fits squarely within utilitarian values. So the philosophy is still conducive to genocide.

B) This will actually be the case only if they'll accept utilitarian ethics. They might as well accept some other ethics, or develope a moral theory based on a deity, or whatever.

Utilitarian ethics can be used to justify any atrocity, as I've pointed out.

No I am not, why would I be? Where's the utility in killing a billion people to mitigate a threat ( muslim extremist terrorism), that has killed only a very small number of people. And I am skipping the other "small" consequences: the depreciation of the value of human life by the public, the trauma, and the destruction of the soul for all of those people who will be executing this monstrosity, etc. etc.

:Hmmm:

You said "Killing a billion people to stop terrorism is completely uncomparable, ethically." This was as a comparison to Nazi atrocities, so you seemed to be arguing it was okay to kill a billion to stop terrorism.

I've never claimed there is a right for those people to exist. I've said that their welfare and their happiness should be taken into consideration as well, just as the value of the people that exist today is taken into consideration. That's why we shouldn't destroy the enviroment ( a good example by agathon).

My turn:

If you are FORCING a woman to have a baby she doesn't want to have for the sole purpose of continuing the human race by your force of will, then how can you say you don't think there is a right for people to exist? You may not have stated such, but it's implicit in your very philosophy! Taking into account the welfare and happiness of future generations is NONSENSICAL when the question is whether or not there will even BE any future generations! You're not taking into account their welfare, you're forcing their existence. Citing Agathon as agreement is funny, because if you'd read him clearly, you'd see he disagrees with you and makes a clear delineation between such things as not destroying the environment and this scenario.

How does that change the value of the non-existing people. In both cases they don't exist YET. in one of the cases, there certainty they'll exist is much lower than in the other, still there exists such possibility.

Um, easy: In this instance, their existence will solely be predicated by the forcible actions of you, the murderer/rapist. This is called rigging the system. Without your forceful actions, there is no question as to them existing: they won't.

Protecting the environment also, I should mention, doesn't involve rape/murder. So there's another big difference.

Then the amount of utility will decrease. btw, I still claim that utility only applies to human beings, not to sentient beings, generally, since only human beings have a concept of ethics.

First, you've not demonstrated why "utility" is in and of itself something so precious that it must preserved by these lengths. Second, you've no evidence that the universe isn't vastly populated by ethical beings, nor that there aren't ethics in other earth beings. Any biologist who has made extensive studies of primate cultures would disagree with you, in that many primate species certainly do have ethics. As I've said, there's absolutely no reason to believe that should humanity go, other ethical, intelligent beings won't take our place. Evolution fills niches, and there is obviously a niche for such being on this planet.

The limits aren't absurd. If you prefer the here-and-now, you're short-sighted, and are wrong. If you base your arguement on the uncertainty that these people will be born, then, as I've explained, nothing is certain.

The limits are absurd, but they follow logically from your arguments. You're concerned with the utility in the universe 500 years from now. Well, 15 billion years from now there won't be much of anything to worry about regardless. So what's the difference if humanity dies out today or in 10,000 years? What's the point of placing such primacy on purely thinking about the future without any regard to the here-and-now situation and suffering? Frankly, if being more concerned with real people than non-existent one is "short-sited," I don't have one bit of regret about being labeled such. Of course, I do care about the future and would like to make a future world that's as nice as possible for as many people as possible. I'm just not going to rape/murder to see it done.

But your logic reminds me of the people who scoff at animal rights activists by saying that if it weren't for humans breeding chickens/cows/pigs so they could eat them, then they might be extinct. As if it were better for a chicken to live and be slaughtered for a dinner than to never have lived at all. It's a truly bizarre line of thinking.

Because Utility will encrease: more humans that are more happy for more time is good.

Increased utility for here-and-now people, yes. But to cause suffering to those people on a thin promise of it increasing for the future generations that would otherwise not even be created is an abhorently immoral position, and is fundamentally undercut by the premise that the increase of utility should be ensured for those certain/likely to be there, not for those who otherwise wouldn't be there except for your forcible actions to increase their utility. It's a strangely circular logic you have.

problem is for most people, utility is still positive. The number of people who are better off dead is very small: the extremely sick individuals who want euthanasia come to mind. This is true even for the poorest countries. Did you know that 30% of all Indians consider themselves COMPLETELY satisfied with their lives?

The last anecdote is irrelevant, but I'll at least address the first part: We live in a pecular time of history where one could argue this is true. But it hasn't always been that way, and I'd argue that for most of human history, life has been more grim despair than happiness. The vast majority of people in history have lived in times of horrific wars and atrocities, devastating plagues and disasters, and great oppression. You're applying your narrow experiences and the snapshot of the modern world to all of history, which isn't particularly accurate.

But regardless, you don't know for sure...it could be that more people will ultimately suffer horribly than will benefit from your rape/murder.

Of course, given mankind's penchant for genocide, I'd also have to wonder if our destruction wouldn't ultimately be of utilitarian value to other intelligent lifeforms. Perhaps in our extinction is the prevention of our spreading massive genocide to other worlds, or of our race being a victim of such?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Azazel
Or, you can have a wiser method of enforcing this through financial insentives. The parents themselves are certainly NOT the only ones qualified for this. Some ( stupid) parents think that it's a good idea to have 11 kids, let me share a secret with you: IT'S NOT.

Patently stupid generalization.

I work with a guy who is the oldest of 14 kids. He and all of his siblings had a loving upbringing, are all pretty well-adjusted people and have loving families of their own. Their mother recently died, and the entire family (which was around 40 people, including all grandkids) assembled for the services, and it was (I was told) an incredible, uplifting celebration of thier mother and family.

Was utility increased?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Azazel
Does the next generation have a right to exist? of course not. Rights do not exist. Would it be WRONG to prevent from the next generation to exist: yes, of course.

Again, this is contradictory. If you believe it's wrong to "prevent the next generation from existing," you're de facto claiming they have some sort of right to exist. Your entire argument has been about forcing a woman to bring said generation into existence, against her will and at the expense of her life, just so those future people can exist and, as you put it, "increase utility." That IS saying they have some sort of "right" to exist, whether you're unwilling to explicitly state it or not.

[curtsibling]

Some damn good debates here people!

And that was exactly the objective of this thread!