Mild rant. I don't want kids, but now im at that age where all my stepsisters, sister and close friend all have kids now. My last childless stepsister is pregnant and they want to facetime the gender reveal. I just can't feign my excitement for this shit anymore. oh yay, another white american baby, how special. I guess she really just made the mistake of having a kid after the people i care about most(sister and close friend) already had kids so i just don't care anymore(in addition to not being close with my stepsisters, our parents married and we were all young adults basically).
But this got me thinking about how people talk about their pregnancies. The selfless reason is bringing a life into the world(lol) but i literally can't think of another selfless reason. They will want the kid to be like them, they will try to raise it like them, they probably also are thinking about how a child can care for them when they are older. Two people think they are really great and made something super special and im fucking over it.
I think the genuine selfless reason is to maintain your community. If there is any telos inherent to human nature it is to overcome nature without destroying humanity or the earth.
I think the selfishness and the way it plays out is just a fundamental aspect of everyone worshiping themselves in the protestant tradition.
Yeah i do think this makes sense. It only works though if you think you're part of a community that's worth continuing
Well yeah, but what else is there to do? All other pursuits they can take are also selfish. Might as well sate the powerful urge to pro-create that is very much ingrained in our biology. Give them something else to think about than the existential void that is American life.
Give them something else to think about than the existential void that is American life.
The solution to this is definitely not to drag another life into the very same existential void without its consent
Agreed, but consent is irrelevant here, you may as well be an anti-abortion rights activist with that kind of argument.
My point wasn't about the time, popular opinion or legality of abortions, it was on the idea that you can assert that a 'soul' (assuming the existence of such a thing) can or cannot 'consent' to being brought into the world. Imo, it's a perversion of the concept of consent, and creates huge metaphysical complications that I think even the Jesuits wouldn't want to argue about.
It's fairly normal to not give a shit about the babies of people you aren't close to
What about fostering/adoption? I'd like to go that route instead of having a baby. You aren't increasing the need for resources and you can help a child have care and affection this world will not offer otherwise.
If by some miracle I become financially well off, this is my plan. I want to have the time and money to provide for a kid before I'd consider it, though, and most of that goes to rent these days.
My parents always talk about how the only reason they had kids was so someone would take care of them when they're old, and because "having kids is what you're supposed to do"
This is literally it, if parents want to admit it or not.
"It's just what you're supposed to do" is it exactly. Sometimes they don't realize it but if you question them it always leads here
Having a kid so there is someone to take care of you is the most common thing I hear, and in the year 2022 that's such a ridiculous gamble. My parents are around 70 and I can still barely take care of myself at 35.
Last I checked, raising a child to adulthood costs an average of like $500k or something ridiculous like that, so you are basically gambling that amount on the kid A) not moving away, B) not ending up hating you for any reason within or beyond your control, and C) being financially secure enough in adulthood to take care of you in addition to themselves and any children they may have.
Gonna go through the entire process of having a kid just so I can post their picture on /r/childfree to dunk on those losers and get banned before even 15 people see it
Ideally, I'd like the child to eventually consider me so reactionary as to deserve execution and have the wherewithal to follow through.
Also, this framing presupposes that the only configuration a child can exist in is a nuclear family, an incredibly modern and harmful arrangement that reproduces generational trauma with staggering regularity. The precondition for the existence of a child is genetic material from two people, but that doesn't just magic up some kind of ownership of this new person by the people with the source DNA. Amerikkkan insistence on this structure and all its consequences is one of the big reasons we all have huge parental baggage and anxiety disorders, now. There are better ways, but most prospective parents either don't know about them or they can't conceive of an upbringing different from theirs so it wouldn't even occur to them.
I dont think there is a selfless reason, there must be some ethical considerations about pulling a soul out of the void into existence
you can't pull a soul out of non-existence because you're conceptualising non-existence as a state of being you can exist in.
the consent of the unborn is irrelevant because they don't exist yet and things that don't exist are only thought experiments
Uhh... No you actually are responsible for all the suffering and misery your children experience. You created them for selfish reasons, everything that happens to them is your fault, and you didn't ask first. Like, I don't talk about this basically ever because no one wants to engage with it, but having children is an entirely unjustifiable moral harm. You cannot, ever, under any circumstances, make creating new life morally or ethically justifiable.
People that don't exist don't have a right to be consulted because there is no them that can have rights.
Also this logic is weird why are parents only responsible for the bad things that happen to their kids and not the good ones. And why are bad things weighted stronger than good things
1.) All "rights" are constructed around a hypothetical abstract person. We don't conceptualize rights as they apply to Deborah Standing, 36, of Spokesie Illinois. We conceptualize them around an ideal, universal person who is no more or less real than an unborn baby. If it's wrong to do it to Deborah then it's wrong to do it to an hypothetical unborn person.
2.) Bad things don't balance out or negate good things. Giving someone a bunch of ice cream cones doesn't somehow make up for punching them in the face or giving them a swirlie. You're not justified for brutalizing someone at one moment because you were kind to them at another moment. Inflicting harm for selfish reasons is never justified.
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yes there is a conceptual person who has rights. But those rights only apply when an instance of person such as Deborah Standing comes into existence for them to apply to.
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why do good things not balance out bad things and who are you to decide that.
why do good things not balance out bad things and who are you to decide that.
Let's say I punch someone in the head really hard. Later, I make them a really nice cake.
Does making someone a nice cake balance out punching them in the head?
Well this is a really uncharitable way of looking at Steve's point. No one is putting forth that you can just bake a cake to make problems go away. To me, experiencing something does has some value in and of itself. Who's to say whether or not every moment balances out to okay? I enjoy the sun on my face. I enjoy the rain falling softly around me. Life does suck, but there is a lot more complexity to a human life than just good or bad and only using these two metrics to try and measure out whether or not birthing someone is right or wrong seems a bit folly.
Also to answer your question, it depends. Is the cake a sign of actual change and consideration? Has that person moved on to the point where they respect and care for others enough not to hit them? The actions can be signifiers of the much more important internal change. The cake may not undo what was done, but that's not the point is it?
Ideas of karmic balance are helpful for interacting with people regularly in a community as they encourage people to be nice enough in some ways to balance out their negative behaviour (and everyone has negative behaviour)
Also the idea that people should just feel guilty for their entire lives is itself an idea of retributive justice and also ignores the fact that guilt actually traps people in negative patterns of behaviour and the only way to improve as a person is to forgive yourself.
Your way would result in everyone feeling terrible while never improving as people
A guilty-feeling person should accept that the past can never be unwritten and act accordingly
what does this mean then
I for one have had extremely negative experiences that looking back helped me grow as a person and that given the option wouldn't undo.
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We conceptualize them around an ideal, universal person who is no more or less real than an unborn baby. If it’s wrong to do it to Deborah then it’s wrong to do it to an hypothetical unborn person.
Where does abortion fit in here?
They're not people yet, and never will be. The argument the previous users present with having kids is that they will be born, and therefore will be people.
Ah, I was missing the implicit “when they become a person”. Fair enough.
Kant blows but fwiw, antinatalists like Benatar get him wrong with the whole means to an ends argument
antinatalists try not to advocate eugenics challenge [impossible]
