Anti-Natalism - A solution for ending materialistic human suffering

[zurew]

36 minutes ago, zazen said:

The issue is less of their worldview being bad or good and more about it being untrue. It essentially boils down to a materialist vs anti-materialist debate because its from that premises that follows all the assumptions and views being made. That's the foundation. Doesn't actualized.org and Leo etc already cover how the materialist worldview is untrue? Like that thread where someone shared Bernardo Kastrup and Alex O'Connor discussing materialism and idealism on the philosophy sub-forum.

Im not tracking how being an idealist would be relevant or how it would solve any of this.

Idealism doesnt presuppose moral realism and you can have any set of moral intutions as an idealist.

Do you think moral-antirealism is incompatible with idealism?

 

Also not sure what is meant by the view not being true. I understand that when it comes to metaphysics, but when it comes to moral realism I have no clue what kind of norm is invoked.

 

Or I could ask it this way: What do you think the error is in a person's position who is an idealist and an anti-natalist at  the same time?

Edited 14 hours ago by zurew

[zazen]

6 hours ago, zurew said:

Im not tracking how being an idealist would be relevant or how it would solve any of this.

Idealism doesnt presuppose moral realism and you can have any set of moral intutions as an idealist.

Do you think moral-antirealism is incompatible with idealism?

 

Also not sure what is meant by the view not being true. I understand that when it comes to metaphysics, but when it comes to moral realism I have no clue what kind of norm is invoked.

 

Or I could ask it this way: What do you think the error is in a person's position who is an idealist and an anti-natalist at  the same time?

Not sure if you were also asking whether anti-realist views can exist within an idealist world? In which case yes, but belief being able to exist is different from it being true. Subjective anti-natalist views can exist within existence but that doesn’t make their universal claims about existence true. Just like someone can believe in Santa, without it being true.

As for idealism (non-materialist worldview) and anti-natalism being incompatible or not - they just don’t resonate with each other at the ontological level of how they view existence. Anti-natalism assumes creation as causation - that you can “bring a being into existence” who previously wasn’t. That idea only makes sense in materialism, where matter precedes consciousness.

But in idealism, consciousness is fundamental and eternal. No one “creates” a conscious being - consciousness already is and simply manifests through different forms. There’s no non-being to violate or new entity to “impose” existence upon.

So the antinatalist’s moral claim - “it’s wrong to force life into being” - loses its metaphysical ground. From idealisms pov it’s like saying the ocean is morally wrong for making waves

That’s why I said it’s not about their worldview being bad as much as it is about being untrue - unless seen from a purely materialist paradigm. But it doesn’t reflect how reality operates in an idealist paradigm. Their ethics depend on the metaphysics of materialism - which see’s a world of separate agents manufacturing life as if in a factory. Once the premise changes, the conclusion evaporates with it.

In other words: the idealist paradigm (that conciousness is primary) is at odds with the materialist paradigm on which anti-natalism depends. The foundational premise from which all assumptions are made is materialist. If the paradigm is widened to include a spiritual metaphysics then the old one is no longer coherent. The premise changes, and along with it the assumptions and the conclusions. The conclusion of the material paradigm is that life is a non-consensually imposed net negative on a new life - therefore anti-natalism makes the correct conclusion that life is best not perpetuated.

[zurew]

34 minutes ago, zazen said:

But in idealism, consciousness is fundamental and eternal. No one “creates” a conscious being - consciousness already is and simply manifests through different forms. There’s no non-being to violate or new entity to “impose” existence upon.

I think now I kind of track what you meant by it being false. You didnt try to make a case for moral realism, you simply said that if idealism is true, then certain moral claims become false (on descriptive grounds) just given the nature of the world.  So if a claim relies on X and there is no X, then the claim is false.

But I dont think thats the case, and here is why: there is an equivocation on consciousness there. Everything is consciousness, but not every single thing is conscious/sentient (unless you are a panpsychist).

 

And as a side note: You can be a physicalist and believe that the Universe is eternal (it doesnt have a beginning)

Edited 7 hours ago by zurew

[Twentyfirst]

Babies come from sex and you can't stop people from having sex. Best to regulate it and produce good families. People from good families don't even think about anti natalism. It's always people from messed up backgrounds now they automatically think that family = suffering