Michael Huemer on David Benatar and antinatalism
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- Опубліковано 25 кві 2024
- In this clip from my talk with Dr. Michael Huemer, philosopher and author of "Ethical intuitionism", I asked about his views on David Benatar and antinatalism. This position holds that it is morally wrong to bring new sentient beings into existence. Benatar argues that existence is inherently marked by suffering and that the potential harms of life outweigh any potential benefits. He explores these ideas in his book "Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence," which has sparked considerable debate within philosophical circles and beyond. Naturally, Huemer disagrees with Benatar.
Michael Huemer is a philosopher who has made significant contributions to epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy. He is well-known for his defense of ethical intuitionism, the view that there are objective moral truths and that we can know them through intuition. Huemer argues that moral principles can be known with a level of certainty similar to that of our knowledge of basic facts about the external world. He has also written extensively on political philosophy, advocating for libertarian principles and critiquing common justifications for state authority.
While both philosophers engage with moral and ethical questions, their approaches and conclusions often diverge. Huemer emphasizes the objectivity of moral truths and defends a libertarian political philosophy, while Benatar challenges the value of existence itself and advocates for antinatalism as a moral imperative. Despite their differences, both philosophers have influenced contemporary discussions on ethics and continue to provoke thought and debate within the philosophical community.
#ethics #philosophy
I myself totally agree with David Benatar, putting it simple no matter how huge your house is and how much joy you have or HAD in life you’re STILL GOING TO DIE, so what was all of that for in the end. Surely everyone has their own opinion and will not agree with that way of looking at life but I most definitely do, and I had said the same thing before I came across David Benatar a couple of weeks ago. I couldn’t believe that there was someone else that thought the same thing as myself. How does anyone know whether we lived before we came here or not, I’ve never heard that one before, how would again, how would anyone know that….
The pain and suffering and grief, and the ultimate DEATH is too much to me, and that’s what makes life so unpleasant, uncertain, and HORRIFIC, therefore i totally agree with Benatar. I’ve taken a long hard look at life and still can’t figure what this is really about. I’m glad that there is some joy in life but my opinion is that it would have been better not to have been…..
3:12 How do you know that? What is your evidence for that?
yeah i was flabbergasted as well. He just states this without any evidence and goes from there.
@joepvans5035 Honestly, as I grow older, I have less and less patience with bullshit. Where do these people get the audacity from to assert these kind of claims without any evidence? It just baffles me.
Is it wrong to create someone who is guaranteed a life of suffering? For example, advocating for a meth baby to be brought to term?
If so, where would we draw the line? 70% suffering? 49%?
My 30s consisted of 3 dvt clots, 2 major brain surgeries and 2 tumors to go along with that. And 2 years of chemo. And bankruptcy. And failed loved. My 30s were mostly pain.
I'm eternally grateful for that time, suffering or not. However, if I ultimately reach the point where all that's left is to suffer and die, that's back to the meth baby situation.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
He should look into Generic Subjective Continuity.
Also, not existing didn't stop this life from being imposed, so why would it have stopped some other life from being imposed had this one not been born?
Not existing hasn't stopped a life from being imposed for every single living being that has ever existed, so why would not existing stop a life from being imposed had you not been born? All it took was a life (in the generic sense) coming to exist, for a life to be imposed.
So not existing doesn't impede or block suffering. We all know this because we all didn't exist, and it was ineffective at protecting us. If it isn't one life it's another.
Good argument!
Because we can make decisions about who we will bring into existence and that has an impact on the total number of people who exist, and the total number of people who could have existed but don’t. If you resist comparing against the never-existant, then you run into trouble when comparing the absence of pain with the presence of pain in a life of only pain. If you think that never existing is no better than existing that is. Your view is like saying that when we are born we are incarnated from a collective group of never existing souls, that can be harmed later down the line if we don’t decide to bring one into existence in that moment. That is not the right way to conceptualise it
A question to YOU now.
if you had a button could peacefully wipe all sentient lives in universe and it also guarantees NO LIFE EVER ARISES AGAIN TILL ETERNITY.
The one opportunity to liberate all innocent beings from the vicious ways of universe. Would you press the button? YES or NO.
@naturalisted1714, life was imposed on you and on me. If our parents had not produced us we would not suffer, we would not experience anything.We are born, we suffer, and we impose suffering on other beings. When we are not born, we do not suffer.
When we do not procreate we do not impose suffering on another being. We end that cycle of suffering for our lineage.
It seems that you are arguing that life is imposed suffering and because others suffer it's fine to procreate and impose suffering on your child.
Your argument disregards the individuality of each existence.
I'm having a hard time understanding how this doesn't amount to saying that, for some moral X, there is no obligation not to ~X, because even if you don't, others will. This implies that there is no obligation to do anything, as an individual, if your effort and those of others who behave like you do isn't eliminating the unwanted thing universally. That's clearly implausible.
Imagine you looked at human existence economically. At least as far as we can tell, there won't ever be "enough to go around" of some highly desirable thing to satisfy every possible desire. It follows that, in the case of that item (whatever it may be), there will always be somebody in a state of wanting without having. Does this fact make it true that you have no obligation to give to those in need? That is, even if your giving couldn't possibly eliminate the problem of needfulness simpliciter from the universe?
surprised he is an actual professor. really bad at thinking
Have you read his books or his blog (Daily Nous)? I don't agree with major points of his metaphysics, incl. his moral ontology, and his politics, but it is very obvious that he is not a bad thinker.
I don't think he's a bad thinker either, I just think he hasn't looked too deeply into Benatar's arguments