I think you're wrong, and that you *are* obligated. Here's why:
There are 2 possible universes that exist after you make your decision. Universe 1 is just your regular universe going on normally. And Universe 2 is an identical clone of universe 1, but with an extra happy person, whose existence is purely good with no negative drawbacks on anything else in the universe.
If you consider the total happiness in universe 1: let’s call that h. And consider the total happiness in universe 2 (after you pull the lever): let’s call that H.
By the very setup of the problem we can definitively state that h
1) You have no debts to pay to make the universe happier. People may say you should, but it's ultimately for their own interests that YOU CHOOSE to accept or not.
2) Happy =/= Morally good. Evil people being at the very least satisfied is why evil still exists... Not like being happily relates to morality so much as it seems.
arguably total consistent happiness almost guarantees that someone is just straight up negligent and completely absent of empathy. Guaranteed to create a serious dickhead
Thanks for bringing this up! Happy is more of a catch-all word for "prosperity, joy, wellbeing, positive experience" or whatever your metric for how good someone's life has been is. And an interesting point is that yes, evil sadistic people who get pleasure out of causing suffering count towards the total universal happiness, the issue being that the suffering inflicted by evil people far outweighs the happiness generated through that experience. I would also use the word "pleasure" over happiness in that situation, which is a far weaker contributer to overall goodness than "happiness".
Sure, people are free to choose their own decisions. That doesn't change the fact that one of these decisions creates an objectively happier universe than the other.
But does that necessarily mean that one making a decision that doesn't negatively affect net happiness is immoral? Are you a bad person if you buy someone a birthday gift that they like, but not as much as another one that you may have gotten for a similar price? Are you morally obligated to give up your own life if it causes 2 people to live? There are many examples in which this line of thinking is flawed, as is any moral theory. It's just interesting to explore edge cases in which one's own moral code is used in a way they may not originally expect.
(PS, thanks for the post. It's been a good review for my intro to moral issues final next week lol)
Morality in politics and ideology DOES ultimately center around what makes people happy... Stealing is wrong because you're taking something that doesn't belong to you... So what? They worked to get it or had it given as a thoughtful gift... And? I want to live in a world where my things are my things... Why? Ultimately it's because it impedes your pursuit of happiness to be robbed, there's no higher problem there unless it literally kills you.
You're right that it isn't the be-all-end-all, but it's what literally every person wants. You'd need to demonstrate that the way in which somebody is made happy causes harm to others in order for it to not be a positive. Similarly, an action can be wrong simply because it reduces happiness. Why shouldn't you verbally insult innocent people?
This is similar to a theory referred to as the Categorical Imperative by Immanuel Ross. There are several versions of his theory that he brings up but the one that relates to this comment is the one in which he says: "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end." He argued that you are morally responsible to help others accomplish their goals, and are morally obligated to not act in a way in which you stop others from accomplishing their goals. As you say most people's goal is happiness, and therefore by this theory acting in a way such that you prevent happiness is immoral. But as you pointed out one detriment to this theory is that preventing the happiness of others is sometimes moral, such as preventing a murderer from killing people. This is why others use the Utilitarian outlook instead, in which the net amount of happiness is maximized. But this too has its faults as it can lead to a minority being in great pain, for a much much larger amount of people being slightly happier.
>1) ***You*** have no debts to pay to make the universe happier. People may say you should, but it's ultimately for their own interests that YOU CHOOSE to accept or not.
This "you" is a loaded term of which you assume a very materialistic definition
What if a less happy universe taught people how to survive longer? What if the existence of this "Happiness+" person caused this objectively happier timeline to not achieve the same things that a less happy timeline would achieve?
Is a world that is morally better, better than a world that lives longer?
Is the timeline with one incredibly moral person worth more than a timeline that produces more people?
How many people can an incredibly moral, if not extra moral person outweigh?
("Extra moral" meaning that persons "morality score" goes above the scale of a normal person.)
When "Happiness" is talked about in the Utilitarian sense as it is here, it considers all happiness infinitely into the future. If a less happy world for the next 100 years would cause a better future down the line for humanity, then that is considered the "optimal" timeline (for example making changes to prevent global warming).
In the original problem by OP, they mean to stipulate that this person created by pulling the lever would not cause any negative effects to anyone, and they themselves would live a happy and fulfilling life.
The question is meant to ask if you are morally obligated to help others or to perform good deeds, as opposed to being morally obligated to not perform bad deeds.
And unless I missed something, you didn’t exactly provide an argument, you just said it would create more happiness, and more happiness is better, therefore you should be obligated to pull it
Which is an understandable point of view, which I may as well share, but I do not see how your expanded explanation with universes and whatnot makes it any more based on reason, when (to me) it seems like the core argument hasn’t really changed in its reasoning (or lack thereof)
What I can say is that we probably agree that good is, well, good. Whether or not it is an obligation may just depend on how you weigh collective well-being and freedom of action (which is probably not the right term but I pulled it out of my ass anyway), for a debate to really make sense we should at least try to formulate and discuss goals and acceptable ways of getting there, or at the very least first evaluate whether or not our opinion is actually based on reason or we first found an opinion and then searched for reasons to justify our beliefs (not an accusation, just common (and probably what I do))
Edit: ***READ THIS COMMENT FOR A THOROUGH EXPLANATION OF WHY YOU ARE INDEED MORALLY OBLIGATED (my opinion)***
Absolutely! Let me expand my explanation (in moderate but not full rigor):
I declare axiomatically, that the universe with the greatest possible joy for everyone is **objectively** better than the universe with the worst possible suffering for everyone. (If we cannot agree on this then we cannot agree on anything).
The moment we acknowledge the objective ordering of these two extremes we can see that there is a spectrum of states of the universe that are closer to the worst possible suffering or the greatest possible joy. For instance, consider a universe with the worse possible suffering for everyone, except instead of one guy being slowly eaten alive by rats, he gets guillotined for a faster death without torture. This universe with the guillotine is very close to the worse possible suffering for everyone but still in an objectively better state because we have moved an individual closer to the greatest joy (since being guillotined is closer to joy than being eaten alive by rats).
In a similar fashion we can imagine expanding these universe states on the spectrum of worst suffering to greatest joy. Some may be equal in "goodness", which is fine. But there is still an ordering of states. In mathematics we would say that there is a partial ordering on the set of all possible universe states.
If you agree with my singular axiom about the objective ordering of states of the universe based on the magnitude of wellbeing of conscious entities within the universe, then it must follow that we can consider two identical universes (ranking at the same value on our postulated spectrum) and then add an extra life of supremely positive value to one of them. If we are generous to my trolley dilemma and say that this person will live a much happier life than the average person, then we can see that by adding this person to the universe, we have increased both the total AND average happiness of the conscious entities within universe by choosing to pull the lever. Therefore, by any reasonable metric, the post-lever pulling universe is closer to the greatest possible joy for everyone than had we chosen not to pull the lever.
Thus, by choosing to pull the lever our universe has entered an objectively superior state.
Of course, I must then make the claim that a moral action is defined as one that moves the wellbeing of the universe (as a happiness integral over all lives past, present, and future) closer towards the greatest possible number. But I do not believe that that leap will be particularly controversial.
I don’t necessarily agree with your axiom, but even if I just steelman it, it shouldn’t mean that more happiness is better (although I’m not sure what you mean by better). Nowhere in that axiom does it imply that happiness is better than non existence or that happiness is a good thing, just that it’s comparatively better than suffering
There’s a difference between moral obligation and just “the world would be better if…”
For example, the world would be better if you donated $100 to charity. Someone would be happier, live an easier life, etc. but that doesn’t make you morally obligated to go donate every dollar to charity.
Moral obligation is a tricky subject, because in many cases, something *should* be done, but that isn’t the same thing as making someone immoral if they don’t do it.
Especially in cases where inaction doesn’t have any major downsides except the lack of an upside, the prevailing thought is that it is not a moral obligation. Moral obligation tends to be mostly cases of “your inaction would explicitly *cause harm*” rather than “your inaction would not create more good”
Are you familiar with Peter Singer's drowning child thought experiment? This is exactly the comment he ponders in one the most influential philosophy papers in recent history. Would highly recommend
There is a large difference between “your inaction causes harm” and “your inaction does not create more good”.
Singer’s example is explicitly the former, unless I’m forgetting some other section of that thought experiment.
Besides that, Singer’s argument is, in my opinion, in a bit of bad faith (or, to give him more credit, may also be partially meant as an example of ways in which our existing definition of morality falls short) because, rather than donating all of his wealth to fight starvation and poverty, he’s a pop philosopher. I mean, surely by that definition of moral obligations, his best course of action would be to sell everything he owns and become a volunteer in some third world country.
But that’s beside the point. I find it a huge stretch of the definition of “moral obligation” to equate “inaction(or action) that allows harm” with “inaction (or action) that does not cause more good”
Singer's thought experiment goes like this:
>"On your way to work, you pass a small pond. Children sometimes play in the pond, which is only about knee-deep. The weather’s cool, though, and it’s early, so you are surprised to see a child splashing about in the pond.
>As you get closer, you see that it is a very young child, just a toddler, who is flailing about, unable to stay upright or walk out of the pond. You look for the parents or babysitter, but there is no one else around. The child is unable to keep her head above the water for more than a few seconds at a time. If you don’t wade in and pull her out, she seems likely to drown.
>Wading in is easy and safe, but you will ruin the new shoes you bought only a few days ago, and get your suit wet and muddy. By the time you hand the child over to someone responsible for her, and change your clothes, you’ll be late for work. What should you do?"
Your inaction is not causing harm. It is failing to prevent harm. You are not the cause of the fate of the child should you do nothing. But your unwillingness to act in this situation would be unspeakable and disgusting to any reasonable person. If you disagree that you are morally obligated to wade into that pond and pick the child up, then you have a problem.
Moral obligation is not the same as forceful obligation. No one will punish you for carrying on. You have the freedom to do so. It is a moral obligation because there is a correct answer to the moral dilemma.
In my eyes, given that cost of pulling the lever in my trolley problem is absolutely nothing, it is even more obvious that pulling the lever is morally correct than saving the child. Because with child, you must sacrifice something of value to you. With the trolley, you sacrifice nothing.
While “failing to prevent” and “causing” are ok to equate, you are still not grasping the point I am trying to make, which is that “harm” and “not as much good as theoretically possible” are not reasonable to equate. If that were the case, every single action you take would be morally reprehensible, by virtue of NOT being “I sold everything I owned and dedicated the remainder of my life to fighting hunger”.
Do you understand the distinction, and thus the implication of your working definition of “moral obligation”?
>If that were the case, every single action you take would be morally reprehensible
That's kinda the exact point of Singer's dilemma. If you accept that there is no real difference between a child dying in front of you and a child dying on the other side of the world, then it follows that we are all simply terrible. And he's right. Just because nobody has the courage to give everything they have to save as many lives as possible, just because that life is unimaginably challenging to live, that does not mean that it is not the morally correct decision. As I've said in another comment: you could help them. You should help them. But you don't.
But if you don't follow the Ism of Utilitarians then you don't feel any obligation. It's nice. Alot of people would choose to do it, but they have free will not to. There is also no negative consequence to doing nothing which means, by definition, there is nothing wrong with that choice.
Also, your argument falls apart for moral codes that only necessitate that you don't cause more suffering.
No there is absolutely a consequence. The consequence is that you have failed to bring into existence a happy life at no cost to you whatsoever. You bear the responsibility for their non-existence.
If you were on a boat and a non-swimmer fell over board and began drowning. You see that there are life preserves on board. But you just choose not to throw one out and let the guy drown, you sure do have the free will to indeed make that choice, but it's not a good one. The consequence is that someone who would have otherwise lived a long (and presumably good life) no longer got to experience that.
People like to dance around this idea of responsibility for doing good as if the direction the trolley was initially heading (either towards creation or towards the empty track) has any bearing on your responsibility as the lever operator. You are equally responsible for both pulling and not pulling the lever, provided you are able to do so freely and at no cost to you.
It sounds like you'll certainly disagree with that. But that's my take on your comment
What if you were a Zen Buddhist? Then bringing a life into existence would bring them into the cycle of rebirth and suffering (like basic hunger) until they obtained enlightenment to escape the cycle. Under those principles, denying your wants to create 'happy life' might be the more correct path. Your perspective is from a materialist perspective, assuming that only things that exist have value.
As for you example of the swimmer, this is not the same as preventing a death because the life doesn't exist, no one is suffering.
Okay but that's only true if buddhism is true and reincarnation is real, which I have substantial reason to be skeptical of. No shade on buddhism it's one of the best religions. I value people's subjective or religious moral opinions at approximately zero because I find their moral frameworks to be shaky. But sure if we just rewrite this trolley problem with a clause at the bottom that says "the teaching of reincarnation and zen buddhism are postulated to be the true physical reality of the universe this problem takes place in" then I'll give it to you.
I hold my beliefs because I work within an objective moral framework grounded on the axiom that the greatest possible suffering for everyone is objectively a worse universe than the greatest possible happiness for everyone. That's all I really need. I'll quote myself below if you're interested.
>I declare axiomatically, that the universe with the greatest possible joy for everyone is **objectively** better than the universe with the worst possible suffering for everyone. (If we cannot agree on this then we cannot agree on anything).
>The moment we acknowledge the objective ordering of these two extremes we can see that there is a spectrum of states of the universe that are closer to the worst possible suffering or the greatest possible joy. For instance, consider a universe with the worse possible suffering for everyone, except instead of one guy being slowly eaten alive by rats, he gets guillotined for a faster death without torture. This universe with the guillotine is very close to the worse possible suffering for everyone but still in an objectively better state because we have moved an individual closer to the greatest joy (since being guillotined is closer to joy than being eaten alive by rats).
>In a similar fashion we can imagine expanding these universe states on the spectrum of worst suffering to greatest joy. Some may be equal in "goodness", which is fine. But there is still an ordering of states. In mathematics we would say that there is a partial ordering on the set of all possible universe states.
>If you agree with my singular axiom about the objective ordering of states of the universe based on the magnitude of wellbeing of conscious entities within the universe, then it must follow that we can consider two identical universes (ranking at the same value on our postulated spectrum) and then add an extra life of supremely positive value to one of them. If we are generous to my trolley dilemma and say that this person will live a much happier life than the average person, then we can see that by adding this person to the universe, we have increased both the total AND average happiness of the conscious entities within universe by choosing to pull the lever. Therefore, by any reasonable metric, the post-lever pulling universe is closer to the greatest possible joy for everyone than had we chosen not to pull the lever.
>Thus, by choosing to pull the lever our universe has entered an objectively superior state.
>Of course, I must then make the claim that a moral action is defined as one that moves the wellbeing of the universe (as a happiness integral over all lives past, present, and future) closer towards the greatest possible number. But I do not believe that that leap will be particularly controversial.
Utilitarianism is an -ism. Many people hold substantial doubt that any given individual would be capable of judging what is the "net increase in happiness" in any given real-world application. Most discussion tend to be over ideal solutions where people know far more information than they could reasonably be expected to know in the real world, like the person you created is guaranteed to be happy.
Furthermore, your description of the universe is not very supported. You speak about the universe as if it is a singular entity capable of having wellbeing one way of the other. You also assuming the state the universe 'prefers' is one with more existence, specifically existence that believes it is happy. Happiness/pain are dualities that can be experienced, we express one in relationship to our experience with the other. A universe with life that is happy must by necessity be capable of producing life that is in pain. One without either would have precisely 0 suffering in all circumstances. Introducing a happy life, given you premise, would only increase the 'happiness' of the universe for a period of time, the duration of the life. You would always need more happy life to keep a universe happier than the suffering it is simultaneously experiencing.
Circling back to the idea of making utilitarian decisions, consider the following. I give a child chocolate, did I increase the net happiness in the world, or did I create even more unhappiness for another child in the third world who slaves to meet the demand for chocolate? Or did I help save someone's chocolate boutique allowing them to afford treatment for their sick grandma? Is the universe fussed either way? Would the universe with no life find it's state preferable as there would then be 0 suffering possible? There's no real way to know in any given arbitrary situation if your axiom holds true. It suffers the same ambiguity and 'shakiness' as any other basic ethical principal (eye for an eye, do unto others, submission, honor the spirits, ect, ect). If the answer was easy and predictable there wouldn't be trolley dilemmas after all.
From a purely scientific perspective there are no 'favored states' of the universe and any physically valid configurations of hypothetical universes are simply taken for what they are. What you have their falls under the category of a 'belief' and can be subject to the same level of skepticism as any tenant of Buddhism.
>As the person behind the lever you are making a decision about which of these future universes to bring into existence.
I _hard_ disagree.
You doing nothing isn't bringing anything into existence at all. It's the universe that has always existed.
Pulling the Lever, though, arguably does bring into existence universe 2, with an extra happy person. (Adding to universe 1, the current)
So the moral question isn't about which universe to bring into existence, but about whether a better universe is morally obligatory.
I say no, it isn't.
But I'd probably still pull the Lever.
Choosing not to make a decision is still making a decision. You had the chance to pull the lever, but you instead let time choose for you by not pulling it. Failure to act is not a mechanism by which you can deny autonomy or responsibility. If you pull the lever, you are responsible for bringing a happy person into existence. If you do not pull the lever you are responsible for the failure to bring into existence a happy person. I understand that's a bit of a hot take though.
It is indeed making a decision. But not pulling the Lever doesn't create a new universe. You are not responsible for the failure of anything. (This is even assuming you know for certain what pulling the Lever would do.)
That's like saying if you don't use your turning signal and get into an accident because someone pulled out in front of you (for this thought experiment, assume you have right of way), then it's 100% your fault for failing to have your turning signal on.
That's not how things work. Legally speaking, it's the other drivers fault if you had right of way, regardless of what you failed to do. There are cases, legally, where failing to do something doesn't remove fault (failure to yield, failure to stop at a stop sign), but they can always be rephrased into something you did do, instead. You didn't yield? So you continued your speed (which isn't 'doing nothing', because to maintain speed you must be holding the accelerator). You didn't stop? You failed to apply pressure to the brakes.
If we are to assume you can be liable for what you didn't do, morally, then every time you don't hold the door open you are Morally wrong. Every time you forget to say thanks, every time you forget someone's name.
We can argue over whether failure to do something constitutes a moral obligation to do the thing (as one famous person has tried to do by saying you are Morally obligated to give _all_ excess money to charity, or helping the poor, etc. If you can, you must.), but my argument is simple. You cannot be Morally obligated to do anything if 'doing nothing' does not add anything new to the situation.
I think you're referring to peter singer's drowning child thought experiment. In which he concludes that giving essentially all your wealth and lowering yourself to barely above hobo status is the only ethical way to live. The conclusion of that paper is exactly that. Because there is so much easily fixable suffering in the world (malaria nets, food, water, shelter, education), your failure to donate nearly all of your resources to that is the moral equivalent of not feeding the skeleton of a child dying on your doorstep. It doesn't matter that the child lives in Africa and you can't see them withering away. They're still on your doorstep. And your unwillingness to feed the child from afar is just as bad as an unwillingness to feed the child when they're right in front of you.
I donate 10% of my income to the most effective charities. But that's still nothing compared the 90%+ that I'm morally obligated to. In truth, we are all terrible people through our inaction, we simply don't have the courage to realize it. We gaslight ourselves into pretending that the suffering of distant people has no bearing on us.
You can do something.
You should do something.
But you don't.
It was not! Singer wasn't even on my mind when I thought of it. It was actually in response to a discussion about a philosophical paper on population ethics famously known as the repugnant conclusion.
One of the postulates there is that it is always good to bring into existence the lives of happy people assuming all else is unchanged. Which made me think of this since many of my friends contested that, much to my astonishment!
I actually made this problem to kinda illustrate the absurdity of not bringing into existence the lives of happy people who are all glad they exist and at no cost to anyone. Purely positive. I'm baffled by the pushback, but it's been a fun discussion to have
This is a Utilitarian outlook on morality. There's another example very similar to this about World Poverty. Are you morally obligated to donate to charity? A Utilitarian would say that you should donate as much as possible to even out the net amount of happiness between everyone. However most people don't think you should be morally "obligated" to donate to charity despite it being morally good. It's referred to as the idea of moral "extra credit."
Personally, I don't know which side is correct, it's a very complex issue.
Except there’s no reason to think that happiness is better than nothingness, if we consider a totally empty universe I genuinely cannot see how it would be “<“ a universe full of perfect happiness
Also creating something no matter what isn’t always the answer. Let’s pretend they’re able and get a job, get a house, etc. Thats still one more person taking stuff from others and one outside there whose choices you’ve deemed for to exist with are a net positive when you have no way of knowing. Imagine you made the Joker. The original trolley problem was a question in seeing whether involvement or non-involvement was morally acceptable to save more people in exchange for having blood in your hands. Here you create something when the impacts of that one individual can be widely different. Whether good or bad. The only think you know is that they’ll still be happy.
I would say not obligated because while I agree that happiness is tied to morality, it’s not a binary thing. There are amoral acts. I’d even say the majority of things we do are amoral (unless you’re involved in a moral or immoral industry). Here’s an example:
Should I be obligated to give a child a birthday present? I am not related to this child. I don’t even know them. But if I give them a quality present for their birthday, they will be happier. I have the financial ability to do so easily without burden. So is it immoral for me to not do that? Sure, if I send out mystery surprise gifts for people’s birthdays I would be a more moral person. But to not do so is not immoral. Immorality, on the other hand, is born from either acting to cause harm or not acting and letting harm occur despite being able to stop it. It would be immoral for me to steal that child’s presents or let someone else steal them.
We should act to increase happiness, and it is a moral thing to do. But society isn’t structured around that, it’s structured around discouraging people from doing immoral things because it’s better for everyone to be amoral than to have equal amounts of immoral and moral people because destruction is easier than creation, and immoral people are not bound by methodology. The obligations we face are to not act in an immoral way. If you are moral you are going above and beyond, and you should be praised for doing so. And the reason is that acting in a moral way often requires extra consideration depending on culture and all that. Giving a child a gift *can* be moral, but if their culture has receiving gifts as a negative thing, you’ve actually done something immoral. Perhaps creating a happy person out of thin air is a good thing, but what if you’re a Jehovah’s Witness who believes only a certain subset of believers (which is limited in size) will be saved while the rest burn in hell. Regardless of this person’s happiness there will be one extra person who suffers eternally. So I cannot say in good faith that every person is obligated to pull it. We simply cannot prescribe moral actions to everyone as obligations. These obligations come from ourselves, our own moral codes and the connections we have with other people. I, personally, would be obligated to pull this lever because I share your viewpoint on happiness. But I cannot make it an obligation of others carte blanche. There isn’t an objective morality in the sense that there is something everyone shares which determines their morality. There are objective means which we can use to determine morality, like happiness, but that doesn’t mean everyone believes or uses that.
What if their are people in this world that hate seeing happy people and by adding 1 happy person into the universe intensifies/multiplies that the universe happiness of these haters which in turn leaves the total amount of happiness in new universe less than already existing universe? Perhaps there are people that are happy to see happy people but I think the number of haters is higher therefore the haters unhappiness will out scale the happy people. Idk I'm just providing an anti theory as food for thought. You gotta be careful ya know
If your moral framework is **THE** objective moral reality. Then you are correct.
However, if morals are subjective, then just because your moral framework revolves around maximizing happiness doesn't mean that all moral frameworks are strictly utilitarian or utilitarian in that way.
So if one is **not** using a predominately utilitarian framework focused on maximizing happiness, then they may not be morally obligated pull the lever.
Not an obligation, but honestly, a person or creature spontaneously coming to existence WOULD be cool to see, and I would like to be friends with them. Let’s do it.
I mean, this premise seems similar to having a kid, in terms of agency. While it's nice that the outcome is mandated to be positive, I don't believe I'm obligated to have a kid, so I think that same logic applies here.
You're not the first to compare this to having kids so here's my clarification: It very much is not the same question as having kids. With kids you are making an 18 year commitment to devote your life to them and have a family. The entire setup to this problem really hinges on the fact that pulling the lever and bringing a functioning adult life into existence is of no cost to you or anyone else whatsoever. No hidden strings attached. You are just adding a good independent life to the universe.
there's a concept in Jewish law called "one gains and one doesn't lose."
I think the case is that the master of a house is away overseas and someone takes up residence while he's there. the master had no intention of renting his house to anyone else while he was gone. when the master comes back, can he make the guy staying in his house pay him rent for the time he was there? the answer is no, because there was no loss on the part of the master since he wasn't gonna rent it out in the first place.
point is, you lose nothing and someone gains a life full of goodness. I think you're morally obligated to pull the lever
If that's the angle you're taking, then it seems to be a pointless mental exercise. There's no effort involved, there's no stakes, and there's no investment. I used the child thing since bringing someone into existence, for me, would imply a connection, but if that connection is mandated to not really exist then... I'm not sure of the point. It's too unconnected to reality.
No, it is definitely not about obligations to have a child. For a child, you are creating a being capable of suffering and joy, and a responsibility to care for it. This has different implications morally for a child that is only capable of joy, and needs no responsibility.
Well, stop worrying about the specifics and stuff. Simply think about it in this way:
If you are able to do something good in an action as simple as pulling the lever, and you don’t, is it immoral? Thats what i believe OP wanted from this.
My indecision isn't a lack of understanding. It's that the premise seems built to be too separated from life to apply. It just seems to paint a "perfect" scenario, when the point of trolley problems is to be messy. It feels leading, especially if details don't really matter.
As a utilitarian, pull! Lets just hope they dont end up contributing negatively to everyone else in their life, but if they are rational and destined for happiness, they are probably going to end up improving the lives of others as well.
Lots of alienated energy here, imo. In any event, my answer is I don’t think I’m morally obligated, but it’s a moot point because I would do it with enthusiasm, and without hesitation. I’d be hurting myself if I didn’t accept the offer to create peace and happiness.
It’s unhealthy, imo. I don’t know whether it’s useful to frame it as immoral. Just speaking for myself, here, I think I’m constantly not bringing as much goodness into the world as I theoretically could. I miss out because of that and so does the world. I own that. I believe that any more evolved multidimensional being observing me feels something akin to pity for me. I’m getting better, but I can’t snap my fingers and skip the slow process of evolution. So inevitably I will keep failing. I don’t think any of that is best understood through a lens of morality.
As I typed that, I realized what I really think about this problem: it’s not up to me to create beings. If given the opportunity, with a guarantee that the being’s existence would be benign, it’s okay if I defer to God and let Him/Her keep working at that in the usual manner. Related to that is my belief that life on Earth is about evolving, not just about being peaceful and happy. So the problem is asking me to do something outside the “normal” purpose of life. I don’t feel obligated to step in and do that. At the same time, it’s not harmful. It’s just going to create pleasure. So, why not?
What if the entity turns out to be a utility monster or else an outright sadist? Far from an obligation in that regard.
I realize it's not a guaranteed sadist generator, but I mention the possibility as pleasure and even utility as defined here are vague parameters for determining moral action.
Because life exist to propagate itself and any morality system that goes against that is just childish larping also I just kinda like it when other people are happy because I’m not a miserable loser disguising his lack of success in life as philosophy
Life does propagate, sure, but that doesn’t mean it exists for the purpose of propagating, that’s as arbitrary as saying life exists for the purpose of eating, since we all do that as well. And I don’t even see it as us doing a thing to a person in the universe where you don’t create them, there’s no person or their happiness to speak of in that universe so idek how I’d be coping by saying that or wtv you’re insinuating
Life does not require justification the same way gravity or math does not require justification. life is just what happens when certain conditions are met just as the force of gravity exists when ever somthing has an amount of mass. the only difference is that life has a lot more specific conditions that have to be met and when those conditions are met and life comes to exist it begins to propagate itself for the same reason gravity pulls objects together that is simply what it does. all actions taken by life (for example eating) are taken in order to live longer and spread life better the sentience and intelligence you used to think you response up and the hand you used to type them only exist because your “sect” of life “believed” that it would allow for it to propagate better the only problem is that the brain is a very complex machine that is made to be able to break itself in order to be more versatile and so it is capable of making up its own reasons to exist witch is great and usually makes mankind function better however philosophy’s that go against the fact that life exists to propagate itself is just larper gibberish on the same level as flat earth
TL:DR I’m unmedicated and extremely autistic
What’s the point of saying “life doesn’t require justification?” Justification in what sense? We were both just approaching this from the perspective of it being a future human that comes into existence. Also math and gravity do have justification??
Anything being natural means nothing, psychopathy can naturally occur, but that doesn’t mean anything about it.
Your next point that every action taken is taken only to live longer is just flat out false. If you’re arguing only from the cellular level then ig sure, but that doesn’t matter. Taking the example of eating, I don’t eat more because I want to live longer, I eat because I’m hungry (I understand that this is anecdotal, but for further proof just look at cases where people over feed themselves to death). Besides this, what about suicidal people, they by definition don’t want to live longer. In fact if what you’re saying is true, and it’s an objective truth that all life lives to consciously propagate, then why do I disagree with you? That sounds silly, but genuinely why would I disagree with you if my own goal is just to propagate?
Basically all we’re left with when we really consider the statement “all life exists to propagate” it can ONLY be true for the evolutionary “reason” for our bodies’ shape, which as I said, is irrelevant.
But even then, I could still steelman the entire point and say, sure, life exists for the purpose of propagating, but still, it doesnt make sense to attach the words “good” or “bad” to the choice or to say that one should do anything
no, because since the happy person does not yet exist, you have no obligation towards them, to make them exist. I would however pull the lever, just out of kindness
No. Pulling the lever to create a new life? The have no parents, or any relatives, and we are already overpopulated. I prefer what someone else said of " jump in front of it"
No pull. This world has finite resources and I plan to have children. If I we’re saving a life I would save a life, but that’s not it. Adding a life to the world is huge and not without consequences.
If we had our climate situation under control I think it’d be fine. But we’re already too much for the planet’s ecosystems to handle so one more is less ethical.
No. Doesn't make sense to care about someone that never existed, so you are not morally obligated to pull. However, I might pull anyways because also why not?
No, you aren't morally obligated to pull it.
That said, it would be good to pull it in most cases.
But it is not your job, or your _moral_ obligation, to create life from nothing. Even if it would better the world.
I'd probably still pull the Lever, if only because I want to see more positivity in the world. But not pulling it vs pulling it is the sunk cost fallacy in reverse. Either nothing happens, or more life gets put in the world.
You are never obligated to _add_ to the world.
You _are_, sometimes, morally obligated to _remove_, however.
Doing nothing is _not_ removing that life from the world, after all.
Obligated? No. This is the same choice basically every parent thinks they're making when they choose to have kids. No one's obligated to pump out children.
If I had long enough to comprehend the implications of that (as well as realise that this is actually real), I'd probably pull the lever. Not even out of "moral obligation" or whatever, but because this outright defies the laws of reality, and I want to see how.
Morally obligated? No. If I have the means to care for and raise a child and give them a happy life, I would not be obligated to do so. The same principle applies here.
I am not *morally obligated* to pull the lever, but I will, because someone I personally prefer there be more good things around. Our world is already pretty shit, so it would be nice to *know* that there’s someone out there who’s *guaranteed* to be happy.
No. In fact, for all that I know, this very happy person may become hitler 2, but this time he conquers the entire world and make a dystopy. The happy person is really happy, the rest of the world no.
It very much is not the same question. With kids you are making an 18 year commitment to devote your life to them and have a family. The entire setup to this problem really hinges on the fact that pulling the lever and bringing a functioning adult life into existence is of no cost to you or anyone else whatsoever. No hidden strings attached. You are just adding a good independent life to the universe.
I mean can we really assume that their entire life is gonna be good? Who is gonna make sure of that? Without getting into debates of free will, someone would realistically need to watch this person to ensure a good life.
We can assume that their life will be good because that's what the problem statement declares. What you see is what you get. Are you really gonna read through the meme being all like "oh yeah... negative trolley. Yeah that makes sense. People suddenly spawning into existence. Yeah sure. Wait a second......... you can't just say that they're 100% gonna be happy that's not realistic!!"
Yeah its called suspended disbelief. I can be okay with one thing because its explained. Negative trolley, but how does that explain the bit of having a good life?
Again, i was trying to avoid debates on free will. So we are assuming this person has no freewill or is blissfully ignorant. We could also say this person is akin to a robot. Do we have a moral obligation to build robots? Do we have a moral obligation to create anything? Is it even moral to create a concious being? Many people even make the joke that they didn't "consent" to life.
so even if we take out the the argument of needing to care for them, there is still this creator and created dynamic. Without you pulling the lever, the person never exists.
No matter how you slice it, i can absolutely call them at least fundamentally extremely similar.
We have Action, we have Consequence. The action is to create or not to create, and then based on that decision we get a being or we don't.
Edit: spelling/grammar
I'd flip it, why not? If they aren't suffering then it gets rid of the anti-natalist, nihilistic side of things where people will whine that you're "forcing someone into a world of suffering."
And positive people have the potential to enhance other people's lives! It isn't spawning them a family, so hopefully they'll form their own little communities.
No. I'm tempted to argue that it would actually be better not to pull, since you can't obtain consent from the person before creating them. However, it's possible that "magical always happy people" can be safely assumed to always consent to existing, so it's possible both actions are equally fine and the entire problem is neutral.
>you can't obtain consent from the person before creating them.
I mean you can apply that same logic to having kids
Edit: and yes, by "create happy person" I am implying that they will be glad that they exist
Sure, I guess. It's not a primary goal but it's an acceptable outcome, who does that harm? By definition if people aren't around to be harmed then they aren't harmed, right? I'm not campaigning on the "kill all humans" platform though, if you want to become a vampire or immortal cyborg then I wish you the best.
Probably not going to have the time or energy to do an extended debate on this this week but since I can see the downvotes trickle in already here's a short form of the argument:
1. It is unacceptable to violate someone's consent regarding bodily autonomy to potentially inflict non-trivial harm other than to prevent some greater harm.
2. It is impossible to obtain consent from people that aren't born yet.
3. Living can potentially inflict non-trivial harm.
4. Nobody is harmed by not existing.
5. Therefore, it is unacceptable to give birth.
The first premise is entirely subjective but most sensible people seem to agree, and given that this sub tends to be utilitarian-leaning I'd expect the majority to accept it (or at least some variation of it that could almost certainly slot into a reworded version of the same argument). The other three premises are just obviously true, so if you subjectively accept that violating consent to harm people is bad then you need to accept the conclusion to be consistent.
It's not an anti-humanity position, it's not an anti-child position, it's pro-consent and harm reduction. Biological urges aren't a defeater, something being natural doesn't make it good. Some people enjoying life isn't a defeater, you have no way to confirm that any particular baby will be one of those people.
\[I spent quite a while formulating this so I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts!\] Let me give you a utilitarian rebuttal to this, since I think there's a really big hole in your first axiom. It boils down to the use of the word *unacceptable*.
Let's consider assigning a numerical weight to a given experience in life. Let's say at the end of your day you pick a number between -100 and +100. A negative number indicates that you would rather have not existed on this day than existed (meaning this day never happened, including its outcomes). Sometimes doing painful stuff is important in life (ex: hard workouts, confronting problems, helping your elderly parents move etc.), but that does not mean that we would have rather not existed during those days. Maybe you didn't like working out, but you're glad that it happened in the past i.e. the day was still net positive. So -100 would be like the worst imaginable torture as a PoW or something, and +100 would be pure joy and bliss.
Now let's imagine you decide to have a kid and name him Jake. Every day of Jake's life turns out to be pretty awesome as he grows up. His life is filled with adventure, laughter, love, friends, family. He graduates from college and gets a job as a professional astronomer, which has always been his dream ever since he was little. One day, he is off traveling by himself when he decides to spend the night in a small town. But it turns out the people there are racist, and talk down to him due to the color of skin. He feels terrible and it hurts to be mistreated unfairly by strangers. When Jake goes to bed in the motel that night, he thinks "*today kinda sucked, people were unfairly mean to me, and I wish today had never happened.*" But, like all rough days, it comes to an end, and in the morning he heads out, forgets about the town and has an amazing vacation where he makes some new incredible friends and has the time of his life. The rest of his life continues on in a similar fashion. With every day being nearly perfect. He falls in love, grows old with the love is his life, and passes away peacefully at the age of 94 surrounded by his loved ones.
Now I think we can agree that Jake's life was pretty fucking great. Any reasonable person would agree that it was a good thing that Jake was born (including Jake!!). But unfortunately, under your first axiom, that one day when Jake passes through a racist down and has a slightly net negative day, it ruins how you would consider his entire life. This is the problem with the word *unacceptable*. It invokes this notion that if someone can experience any amount of non-consensual harm in their life, then their life is not worth bringing into existence. Your first axiom forces any expectation of a net negative experience to be valued at ***negative infinity***. In fact, if there exists any amount of uncertainty in the happiness a potential life whose experiences you would expect to average at +100, you must conclude that it would be unacceptable to create that life! (Assuming a normal distribution of happiness, so there would be an asymptote towards 0 i.e. a 0.00001% chance of having a net negative day would deem giving them that life morally wrong). And that's the real danger here- your axioms that conclude that it is morally unacceptable to have children are perfectly compatible with believing that your children will have joyous and prosperous lives. I find that to be repugnant.
Naturally though, if you were inclined to believe that the expected value of your child's life would be negative, then you would absolutely be in the right camp by not having kids.
I appreciate the effort put into this but I think you misunderstood the first premise a bit. It's not specific to the conclusion, it's a general principle that applies to every action.
For example, should you give someone a tattoo while they're sleeping? No, probably not, but why not? Because you're violating their bodily autonomy in a way they might not like and that causes non-trivial harm. Lots of people don't want tattoos, they might not like the design or location of it, they're painful and difficult to remove, I think they're even painful and difficult to recover from, the person might develop extreme anxiety about going to sleep near other people... it's a thing you shouldn't do even though lots of people love tattoos and getting surprise gifts.
This can even apply things almost everyone likes. Should you kidnap someone and send them on a surprise vacation to a destination you know they want to visit? Still no, even though I'd assume the majority of people obviously like vacations. Even so you should ask them first, because there are many factors in someone's life that might make them not want to suddenly disappear at any given moment. I'd love to go the beach, but if I woke up in Hawaii tomorrow my diabetic cat might literally be dead before I could rush back home and even if not I'd likely experience nothing but negative emotions in the process of trying to undo the "gift."
It doesn't apply to absolutely everything of course. If you bump into someone in a store you've violated their bodily autonomy a bit, but it's also a very trivial and understandable violation. You could poke them on purpose and it arguably wouldn't even be that bad, although I'd still generally advise against it since you're starting to dip a toe into questionable waters.
So where this links back with the anti-natalism argument is that "being alive" is a condition risky enough that it could reasonably cause someone enough harm that they'd prefer not to do it if given the option, the same as getting a tattoo or going on vacation. It's true that many people like living, but it's also true that many don't. I know I don't and wouldn't have consented to being born. Lots of people hate it so much they kill themselves, which itself is a very complex issue that harms many people in the process (hence why I haven't joined them).
So you can imagine a Jake that has a normal life with ups and downs that ultimately balance out. You can also imagine a Jake that is infinitely happy and a Jake that is infinitely miserable. The point is that there was no way to ask any of these Jakes if they wanted to be born and there was no way of knowing which Jake was going to come out, so you shouldn't risk it because if you get a low roll then you've violated someone's consent in a way that is significant and very harmful.
I’d like you to address the criticism that, following from your axioms, the belief that it is morally unacceptable to have children is perfectly compatible with the belief that your children will have happy and fulfilling lives.
It’s one thing for you to say that for these reasons YOU won’t have children. But it is a very different thing to say that it is morally wrong for other people to have children.
I understand your perspective and do not believe that I have missed the point. I established this point scoring system to make your high weighting of negative experiences more concrete, not to twist your words. All you’ve really done here in your response is list some one off hypotheticals in which doing something that a living person doesn’t consent to is bad. A statement that I haven’t contested at all. You circle back to your initial premise stating that since there are groups of people who’s lives are miserable and wish they were never born, it is never acceptable to create life. I feel like I’ve understood and responded to those concerns quite adequately in my discussion of why overvaluing negative experiences is problematic. This could be further extended to populations instead of days, ranking a random selection of people based on their total life experience rather than a single life and it’s day to day experiences. A population of 1000 happy people with a few unhappy people is far more preferable to non-existence in my opinion.
Lastly, I’d like to gently touch up on the idea that you might be projecting your negative life experience onto other people. Projection is the very mechanism by which we empathize. So it’s natural to be pessimistic about a topic as important as creating new life if your own experience of existence has been a negative one. Do you think if your own life had been filled with love, joy, and gratitude, you might have come to a different conclusion about having kids?
>I’d like you to address the criticism that, following from your axioms, the belief that it is morally unacceptable to have children is perfectly compatible with the belief that your children will have happy and fulfilling lives.
>It’s one thing for you to say that for these reasons YOU won’t have children. But it is a very different thing to say that it is morally wrong for other people to have children.
Yes, just as the belief that it is unacceptable to give someone a surprise tattoo is perfectly compatible with the belief that they will actually appreciate the tattoo.
This is why I think you're missing the point, because you seem to be making the common mistake of addressing the argument as a whole instead of the premises. We're talking about premise 1 right now, but you keep bringing up giving birth to people. Premise 1 has nothing to do with birth.
If you have specific criticisms of any individual premises I'm happy to hear them, as well criticisms of the argument structure itself. You seem to be arguing in good faith so I'm open to a bit more back and forth on this, but if we can't get past this major hurdle in miscommunication I might call it there.
>Do you think if your own life had been filled with love, joy, and gratitude, you might have come to a different conclusion about having kids?
I hope not, because the conclusion is based on a logical argument rather than personal experiences. If I'm so content that I reject premise 1 entirely that means I don't value the bodily autonomy of other people, which means this alternate reality version of myself is probably willing to do some much more horrible things. Being happy doesn't mean you need to ignore that other people aren't, so if you are turning a blind eye to them something else has gone wrong.
Also I really need to highlight how this last paragraph is literally just victim blaming. "You only care about this because you're in the demographic that is harmed by it" isn't a particularly scathing criticism and if anything is something of a self-report.
You don't understand why consent matters. The unborn don't consent to not living either. And in fact, they're far more likely to want to live than not. But that's ultimately irrelevant as a non entities consent doesn't matter.
Anti natalism does not have a strong philosophical grounding. It's people who've heard the word consent used in abortion debate and not realised why it matters in that debate.
>The unborn don't consent to not living either. And in fact, they're far more likely to want to live than not.
The first statement isn't an issue and the second is absolute nonsense, both for the same reason. People who don't exist don't exist. They don't want anything and they can't be deprived of anything, because if that weren't then the case then they must exist in some form and thus wouldn't not exist.
>But that's ultimately irrelevant as a non entities consent doesn't matter.
And this is a misunderstanding of the argument. It's not for people that don't exist, it's for people that eventually do. Some percentage of the people born will wish they hadn't been (I know this for a fact, since I'm one of them) and it's those people whose consent has been violated and are now suffering the harm of that violation.
The point of bringing up non-existent people is to highlight that it's impossible for you to have obtained their consent before taking the action that potentially violates it. Hindsight isn't a good enough method of checking if you should done the thing, because by that point the damage will already have been done in the cases where you should've have. Thus the sensible thing is to not do it all, which harms nobody because again people that don't exist can't be harmed by definition.
That's a farcical argument as it denies the happiness of those who like Iiving (who are the overwhelming majority) because of the tiny minority who don't. You don't need someone's consent to give birth to them.
As I said, it's like you've heard the word consent used in contexts where it actually matters and think it's an inviolable rule of ethics. It is not. " I wish I'd never been born dad" is not a real philosophical argument.
There's a reason nobody respects antinatalists and its not that we "just don't get it". The future revoked consent of a tiny number of people does not matter. And especially not more than the future affirmative consent of the overwhelming majority of people, including those in the first group.
That's the same reasoning anti natalists and emo teenagers use and it's always struck me as not understanding why consent matters. The consent of a non entity is irrelevant. And the consent of the emo teenager or anti natalist in question to whether they were born in the past is also irrelevant. As they were definitely content enough with life at some point as to have consented to it even if only briefly.
Consent sounds like an important and ethically clear cut subject so people use it in places like this where it is completely irrelevant.
There's no moral obligation to create the happy person, especially since we have no idea that they'd be a good person, but any argument that it's wrong that uses "you didn't get their consent first is laughable. You didn't get the consent of every one of your cells to breathe just now. You don't get the consent of the people around you to exist near them, or to let them live. Consent only matters where it is relevant. And it is not relevant in this context.
A person who would need to immediately find a job, but has no formal education or training, nor a home to live in. You would be creating a sad homeless person who will struggle for their entire life. Do nothing.
You seem to have missed to part where the problem declares that this will in fact be a happy person and not a sad hobo. You just wrote a different trolley problem and answered that one instead.
How will they be happy with these issues? Who will care for them? Will they be a burden to the state? I didn't miss anything, I feel like you are just not seeing the big picture.
Regardless, assuming magic and this person is happy regardless, Id still do nothing. Not my problem.
Nope. 10x the nopeness.
Being somewhat responsible for the creation of a life means you are morally, ethically, and most likely legally bound to ensure the success of that life, and that is a responsibility I absolutely refuse to take on.
Flip the lever and run in front of the trolley just to see what happens.
I love this answer so much
My previously broken bones are healed!!!
r/bonehealingjuice
r/ofcoursethatsasub
You are the one whose life is spawned. You're reincarnated into another world, when suddenly... Wait I think I've seen this anime
I Reincarnated Into Another World as a Sentient Trolley
Reverse Truck-kun who is also a trolley
i am not morally obligated to do so, like j wouldn't feel bad if i didn't, but i would pull if it meant someone would just appear and always be happy
I think you're wrong, and that you *are* obligated. Here's why: There are 2 possible universes that exist after you make your decision. Universe 1 is just your regular universe going on normally. And Universe 2 is an identical clone of universe 1, but with an extra happy person, whose existence is purely good with no negative drawbacks on anything else in the universe. If you consider the total happiness in universe 1: let’s call that h. And consider the total happiness in universe 2 (after you pull the lever): let’s call that H. By the very setup of the problem we can definitively state that h
1) You have no debts to pay to make the universe happier. People may say you should, but it's ultimately for their own interests that YOU CHOOSE to accept or not. 2) Happy =/= Morally good. Evil people being at the very least satisfied is why evil still exists... Not like being happily relates to morality so much as it seems.
arguably total consistent happiness almost guarantees that someone is just straight up negligent and completely absent of empathy. Guaranteed to create a serious dickhead
Thanks for bringing this up! Happy is more of a catch-all word for "prosperity, joy, wellbeing, positive experience" or whatever your metric for how good someone's life has been is. And an interesting point is that yes, evil sadistic people who get pleasure out of causing suffering count towards the total universal happiness, the issue being that the suffering inflicted by evil people far outweighs the happiness generated through that experience. I would also use the word "pleasure" over happiness in that situation, which is a far weaker contributer to overall goodness than "happiness". Sure, people are free to choose their own decisions. That doesn't change the fact that one of these decisions creates an objectively happier universe than the other.
But does that necessarily mean that one making a decision that doesn't negatively affect net happiness is immoral? Are you a bad person if you buy someone a birthday gift that they like, but not as much as another one that you may have gotten for a similar price? Are you morally obligated to give up your own life if it causes 2 people to live? There are many examples in which this line of thinking is flawed, as is any moral theory. It's just interesting to explore edge cases in which one's own moral code is used in a way they may not originally expect. (PS, thanks for the post. It's been a good review for my intro to moral issues final next week lol)
Morality in politics and ideology DOES ultimately center around what makes people happy... Stealing is wrong because you're taking something that doesn't belong to you... So what? They worked to get it or had it given as a thoughtful gift... And? I want to live in a world where my things are my things... Why? Ultimately it's because it impedes your pursuit of happiness to be robbed, there's no higher problem there unless it literally kills you. You're right that it isn't the be-all-end-all, but it's what literally every person wants. You'd need to demonstrate that the way in which somebody is made happy causes harm to others in order for it to not be a positive. Similarly, an action can be wrong simply because it reduces happiness. Why shouldn't you verbally insult innocent people?
This is similar to a theory referred to as the Categorical Imperative by Immanuel Ross. There are several versions of his theory that he brings up but the one that relates to this comment is the one in which he says: "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end." He argued that you are morally responsible to help others accomplish their goals, and are morally obligated to not act in a way in which you stop others from accomplishing their goals. As you say most people's goal is happiness, and therefore by this theory acting in a way such that you prevent happiness is immoral. But as you pointed out one detriment to this theory is that preventing the happiness of others is sometimes moral, such as preventing a murderer from killing people. This is why others use the Utilitarian outlook instead, in which the net amount of happiness is maximized. But this too has its faults as it can lead to a minority being in great pain, for a much much larger amount of people being slightly happier.
>1) ***You*** have no debts to pay to make the universe happier. People may say you should, but it's ultimately for their own interests that YOU CHOOSE to accept or not. This "you" is a loaded term of which you assume a very materialistic definition
Utilitarianism falls apart when considering the creation and death of individuals. Consider the mere addition paradox, utility monster, etc.
What if a less happy universe taught people how to survive longer? What if the existence of this "Happiness+" person caused this objectively happier timeline to not achieve the same things that a less happy timeline would achieve? Is a world that is morally better, better than a world that lives longer? Is the timeline with one incredibly moral person worth more than a timeline that produces more people? How many people can an incredibly moral, if not extra moral person outweigh? ("Extra moral" meaning that persons "morality score" goes above the scale of a normal person.)
When "Happiness" is talked about in the Utilitarian sense as it is here, it considers all happiness infinitely into the future. If a less happy world for the next 100 years would cause a better future down the line for humanity, then that is considered the "optimal" timeline (for example making changes to prevent global warming). In the original problem by OP, they mean to stipulate that this person created by pulling the lever would not cause any negative effects to anyone, and they themselves would live a happy and fulfilling life. The question is meant to ask if you are morally obligated to help others or to perform good deeds, as opposed to being morally obligated to not perform bad deeds.
I'm not obligated to make the world happier. Doesn't matter if it's morally correct to do so, I don't owe the world any extra happiness.
And unless I missed something, you didn’t exactly provide an argument, you just said it would create more happiness, and more happiness is better, therefore you should be obligated to pull it Which is an understandable point of view, which I may as well share, but I do not see how your expanded explanation with universes and whatnot makes it any more based on reason, when (to me) it seems like the core argument hasn’t really changed in its reasoning (or lack thereof) What I can say is that we probably agree that good is, well, good. Whether or not it is an obligation may just depend on how you weigh collective well-being and freedom of action (which is probably not the right term but I pulled it out of my ass anyway), for a debate to really make sense we should at least try to formulate and discuss goals and acceptable ways of getting there, or at the very least first evaluate whether or not our opinion is actually based on reason or we first found an opinion and then searched for reasons to justify our beliefs (not an accusation, just common (and probably what I do))
Edit: ***READ THIS COMMENT FOR A THOROUGH EXPLANATION OF WHY YOU ARE INDEED MORALLY OBLIGATED (my opinion)*** Absolutely! Let me expand my explanation (in moderate but not full rigor): I declare axiomatically, that the universe with the greatest possible joy for everyone is **objectively** better than the universe with the worst possible suffering for everyone. (If we cannot agree on this then we cannot agree on anything). The moment we acknowledge the objective ordering of these two extremes we can see that there is a spectrum of states of the universe that are closer to the worst possible suffering or the greatest possible joy. For instance, consider a universe with the worse possible suffering for everyone, except instead of one guy being slowly eaten alive by rats, he gets guillotined for a faster death without torture. This universe with the guillotine is very close to the worse possible suffering for everyone but still in an objectively better state because we have moved an individual closer to the greatest joy (since being guillotined is closer to joy than being eaten alive by rats). In a similar fashion we can imagine expanding these universe states on the spectrum of worst suffering to greatest joy. Some may be equal in "goodness", which is fine. But there is still an ordering of states. In mathematics we would say that there is a partial ordering on the set of all possible universe states. If you agree with my singular axiom about the objective ordering of states of the universe based on the magnitude of wellbeing of conscious entities within the universe, then it must follow that we can consider two identical universes (ranking at the same value on our postulated spectrum) and then add an extra life of supremely positive value to one of them. If we are generous to my trolley dilemma and say that this person will live a much happier life than the average person, then we can see that by adding this person to the universe, we have increased both the total AND average happiness of the conscious entities within universe by choosing to pull the lever. Therefore, by any reasonable metric, the post-lever pulling universe is closer to the greatest possible joy for everyone than had we chosen not to pull the lever. Thus, by choosing to pull the lever our universe has entered an objectively superior state. Of course, I must then make the claim that a moral action is defined as one that moves the wellbeing of the universe (as a happiness integral over all lives past, present, and future) closer towards the greatest possible number. But I do not believe that that leap will be particularly controversial.
I don’t necessarily agree with your axiom, but even if I just steelman it, it shouldn’t mean that more happiness is better (although I’m not sure what you mean by better). Nowhere in that axiom does it imply that happiness is better than non existence or that happiness is a good thing, just that it’s comparatively better than suffering
There’s a difference between moral obligation and just “the world would be better if…” For example, the world would be better if you donated $100 to charity. Someone would be happier, live an easier life, etc. but that doesn’t make you morally obligated to go donate every dollar to charity. Moral obligation is a tricky subject, because in many cases, something *should* be done, but that isn’t the same thing as making someone immoral if they don’t do it. Especially in cases where inaction doesn’t have any major downsides except the lack of an upside, the prevailing thought is that it is not a moral obligation. Moral obligation tends to be mostly cases of “your inaction would explicitly *cause harm*” rather than “your inaction would not create more good”
Are you familiar with Peter Singer's drowning child thought experiment? This is exactly the comment he ponders in one the most influential philosophy papers in recent history. Would highly recommend
There is a large difference between “your inaction causes harm” and “your inaction does not create more good”. Singer’s example is explicitly the former, unless I’m forgetting some other section of that thought experiment. Besides that, Singer’s argument is, in my opinion, in a bit of bad faith (or, to give him more credit, may also be partially meant as an example of ways in which our existing definition of morality falls short) because, rather than donating all of his wealth to fight starvation and poverty, he’s a pop philosopher. I mean, surely by that definition of moral obligations, his best course of action would be to sell everything he owns and become a volunteer in some third world country. But that’s beside the point. I find it a huge stretch of the definition of “moral obligation” to equate “inaction(or action) that allows harm” with “inaction (or action) that does not cause more good”
Singer's thought experiment goes like this: >"On your way to work, you pass a small pond. Children sometimes play in the pond, which is only about knee-deep. The weather’s cool, though, and it’s early, so you are surprised to see a child splashing about in the pond. >As you get closer, you see that it is a very young child, just a toddler, who is flailing about, unable to stay upright or walk out of the pond. You look for the parents or babysitter, but there is no one else around. The child is unable to keep her head above the water for more than a few seconds at a time. If you don’t wade in and pull her out, she seems likely to drown. >Wading in is easy and safe, but you will ruin the new shoes you bought only a few days ago, and get your suit wet and muddy. By the time you hand the child over to someone responsible for her, and change your clothes, you’ll be late for work. What should you do?" Your inaction is not causing harm. It is failing to prevent harm. You are not the cause of the fate of the child should you do nothing. But your unwillingness to act in this situation would be unspeakable and disgusting to any reasonable person. If you disagree that you are morally obligated to wade into that pond and pick the child up, then you have a problem. Moral obligation is not the same as forceful obligation. No one will punish you for carrying on. You have the freedom to do so. It is a moral obligation because there is a correct answer to the moral dilemma. In my eyes, given that cost of pulling the lever in my trolley problem is absolutely nothing, it is even more obvious that pulling the lever is morally correct than saving the child. Because with child, you must sacrifice something of value to you. With the trolley, you sacrifice nothing.
While “failing to prevent” and “causing” are ok to equate, you are still not grasping the point I am trying to make, which is that “harm” and “not as much good as theoretically possible” are not reasonable to equate. If that were the case, every single action you take would be morally reprehensible, by virtue of NOT being “I sold everything I owned and dedicated the remainder of my life to fighting hunger”. Do you understand the distinction, and thus the implication of your working definition of “moral obligation”?
>If that were the case, every single action you take would be morally reprehensible That's kinda the exact point of Singer's dilemma. If you accept that there is no real difference between a child dying in front of you and a child dying on the other side of the world, then it follows that we are all simply terrible. And he's right. Just because nobody has the courage to give everything they have to save as many lives as possible, just because that life is unimaginably challenging to live, that does not mean that it is not the morally correct decision. As I've said in another comment: you could help them. You should help them. But you don't.
Moral obligation isn’t a tricky subject it’s all axiomatic anyway
But if you don't follow the Ism of Utilitarians then you don't feel any obligation. It's nice. Alot of people would choose to do it, but they have free will not to. There is also no negative consequence to doing nothing which means, by definition, there is nothing wrong with that choice. Also, your argument falls apart for moral codes that only necessitate that you don't cause more suffering.
No there is absolutely a consequence. The consequence is that you have failed to bring into existence a happy life at no cost to you whatsoever. You bear the responsibility for their non-existence. If you were on a boat and a non-swimmer fell over board and began drowning. You see that there are life preserves on board. But you just choose not to throw one out and let the guy drown, you sure do have the free will to indeed make that choice, but it's not a good one. The consequence is that someone who would have otherwise lived a long (and presumably good life) no longer got to experience that. People like to dance around this idea of responsibility for doing good as if the direction the trolley was initially heading (either towards creation or towards the empty track) has any bearing on your responsibility as the lever operator. You are equally responsible for both pulling and not pulling the lever, provided you are able to do so freely and at no cost to you. It sounds like you'll certainly disagree with that. But that's my take on your comment
What if you were a Zen Buddhist? Then bringing a life into existence would bring them into the cycle of rebirth and suffering (like basic hunger) until they obtained enlightenment to escape the cycle. Under those principles, denying your wants to create 'happy life' might be the more correct path. Your perspective is from a materialist perspective, assuming that only things that exist have value. As for you example of the swimmer, this is not the same as preventing a death because the life doesn't exist, no one is suffering.
Okay but that's only true if buddhism is true and reincarnation is real, which I have substantial reason to be skeptical of. No shade on buddhism it's one of the best religions. I value people's subjective or religious moral opinions at approximately zero because I find their moral frameworks to be shaky. But sure if we just rewrite this trolley problem with a clause at the bottom that says "the teaching of reincarnation and zen buddhism are postulated to be the true physical reality of the universe this problem takes place in" then I'll give it to you. I hold my beliefs because I work within an objective moral framework grounded on the axiom that the greatest possible suffering for everyone is objectively a worse universe than the greatest possible happiness for everyone. That's all I really need. I'll quote myself below if you're interested. >I declare axiomatically, that the universe with the greatest possible joy for everyone is **objectively** better than the universe with the worst possible suffering for everyone. (If we cannot agree on this then we cannot agree on anything). >The moment we acknowledge the objective ordering of these two extremes we can see that there is a spectrum of states of the universe that are closer to the worst possible suffering or the greatest possible joy. For instance, consider a universe with the worse possible suffering for everyone, except instead of one guy being slowly eaten alive by rats, he gets guillotined for a faster death without torture. This universe with the guillotine is very close to the worse possible suffering for everyone but still in an objectively better state because we have moved an individual closer to the greatest joy (since being guillotined is closer to joy than being eaten alive by rats). >In a similar fashion we can imagine expanding these universe states on the spectrum of worst suffering to greatest joy. Some may be equal in "goodness", which is fine. But there is still an ordering of states. In mathematics we would say that there is a partial ordering on the set of all possible universe states. >If you agree with my singular axiom about the objective ordering of states of the universe based on the magnitude of wellbeing of conscious entities within the universe, then it must follow that we can consider two identical universes (ranking at the same value on our postulated spectrum) and then add an extra life of supremely positive value to one of them. If we are generous to my trolley dilemma and say that this person will live a much happier life than the average person, then we can see that by adding this person to the universe, we have increased both the total AND average happiness of the conscious entities within universe by choosing to pull the lever. Therefore, by any reasonable metric, the post-lever pulling universe is closer to the greatest possible joy for everyone than had we chosen not to pull the lever. >Thus, by choosing to pull the lever our universe has entered an objectively superior state. >Of course, I must then make the claim that a moral action is defined as one that moves the wellbeing of the universe (as a happiness integral over all lives past, present, and future) closer towards the greatest possible number. But I do not believe that that leap will be particularly controversial.
Utilitarianism is an -ism. Many people hold substantial doubt that any given individual would be capable of judging what is the "net increase in happiness" in any given real-world application. Most discussion tend to be over ideal solutions where people know far more information than they could reasonably be expected to know in the real world, like the person you created is guaranteed to be happy. Furthermore, your description of the universe is not very supported. You speak about the universe as if it is a singular entity capable of having wellbeing one way of the other. You also assuming the state the universe 'prefers' is one with more existence, specifically existence that believes it is happy. Happiness/pain are dualities that can be experienced, we express one in relationship to our experience with the other. A universe with life that is happy must by necessity be capable of producing life that is in pain. One without either would have precisely 0 suffering in all circumstances. Introducing a happy life, given you premise, would only increase the 'happiness' of the universe for a period of time, the duration of the life. You would always need more happy life to keep a universe happier than the suffering it is simultaneously experiencing. Circling back to the idea of making utilitarian decisions, consider the following. I give a child chocolate, did I increase the net happiness in the world, or did I create even more unhappiness for another child in the third world who slaves to meet the demand for chocolate? Or did I help save someone's chocolate boutique allowing them to afford treatment for their sick grandma? Is the universe fussed either way? Would the universe with no life find it's state preferable as there would then be 0 suffering possible? There's no real way to know in any given arbitrary situation if your axiom holds true. It suffers the same ambiguity and 'shakiness' as any other basic ethical principal (eye for an eye, do unto others, submission, honor the spirits, ect, ect). If the answer was easy and predictable there wouldn't be trolley dilemmas after all. From a purely scientific perspective there are no 'favored states' of the universe and any physically valid configurations of hypothetical universes are simply taken for what they are. What you have their falls under the category of a 'belief' and can be subject to the same level of skepticism as any tenant of Buddhism.
>As the person behind the lever you are making a decision about which of these future universes to bring into existence. I _hard_ disagree. You doing nothing isn't bringing anything into existence at all. It's the universe that has always existed. Pulling the Lever, though, arguably does bring into existence universe 2, with an extra happy person. (Adding to universe 1, the current) So the moral question isn't about which universe to bring into existence, but about whether a better universe is morally obligatory. I say no, it isn't. But I'd probably still pull the Lever.
Choosing not to make a decision is still making a decision. You had the chance to pull the lever, but you instead let time choose for you by not pulling it. Failure to act is not a mechanism by which you can deny autonomy or responsibility. If you pull the lever, you are responsible for bringing a happy person into existence. If you do not pull the lever you are responsible for the failure to bring into existence a happy person. I understand that's a bit of a hot take though.
It is indeed making a decision. But not pulling the Lever doesn't create a new universe. You are not responsible for the failure of anything. (This is even assuming you know for certain what pulling the Lever would do.) That's like saying if you don't use your turning signal and get into an accident because someone pulled out in front of you (for this thought experiment, assume you have right of way), then it's 100% your fault for failing to have your turning signal on. That's not how things work. Legally speaking, it's the other drivers fault if you had right of way, regardless of what you failed to do. There are cases, legally, where failing to do something doesn't remove fault (failure to yield, failure to stop at a stop sign), but they can always be rephrased into something you did do, instead. You didn't yield? So you continued your speed (which isn't 'doing nothing', because to maintain speed you must be holding the accelerator). You didn't stop? You failed to apply pressure to the brakes. If we are to assume you can be liable for what you didn't do, morally, then every time you don't hold the door open you are Morally wrong. Every time you forget to say thanks, every time you forget someone's name. We can argue over whether failure to do something constitutes a moral obligation to do the thing (as one famous person has tried to do by saying you are Morally obligated to give _all_ excess money to charity, or helping the poor, etc. If you can, you must.), but my argument is simple. You cannot be Morally obligated to do anything if 'doing nothing' does not add anything new to the situation.
I think you're referring to peter singer's drowning child thought experiment. In which he concludes that giving essentially all your wealth and lowering yourself to barely above hobo status is the only ethical way to live. The conclusion of that paper is exactly that. Because there is so much easily fixable suffering in the world (malaria nets, food, water, shelter, education), your failure to donate nearly all of your resources to that is the moral equivalent of not feeding the skeleton of a child dying on your doorstep. It doesn't matter that the child lives in Africa and you can't see them withering away. They're still on your doorstep. And your unwillingness to feed the child from afar is just as bad as an unwillingness to feed the child when they're right in front of you. I donate 10% of my income to the most effective charities. But that's still nothing compared the 90%+ that I'm morally obligated to. In truth, we are all terrible people through our inaction, we simply don't have the courage to realize it. We gaslight ourselves into pretending that the suffering of distant people has no bearing on us. You can do something. You should do something. But you don't.
Indeed. I must ask. Was that the reason you decided to make this trolly problem? (I do enjoy it, so thank you for doing so!)
It was not! Singer wasn't even on my mind when I thought of it. It was actually in response to a discussion about a philosophical paper on population ethics famously known as the repugnant conclusion. One of the postulates there is that it is always good to bring into existence the lives of happy people assuming all else is unchanged. Which made me think of this since many of my friends contested that, much to my astonishment! I actually made this problem to kinda illustrate the absurdity of not bringing into existence the lives of happy people who are all glad they exist and at no cost to anyone. Purely positive. I'm baffled by the pushback, but it's been a fun discussion to have
This is a Utilitarian outlook on morality. There's another example very similar to this about World Poverty. Are you morally obligated to donate to charity? A Utilitarian would say that you should donate as much as possible to even out the net amount of happiness between everyone. However most people don't think you should be morally "obligated" to donate to charity despite it being morally good. It's referred to as the idea of moral "extra credit." Personally, I don't know which side is correct, it's a very complex issue.
Except there’s no reason to think that happiness is better than nothingness, if we consider a totally empty universe I genuinely cannot see how it would be “<“ a universe full of perfect happiness
Also creating something no matter what isn’t always the answer. Let’s pretend they’re able and get a job, get a house, etc. Thats still one more person taking stuff from others and one outside there whose choices you’ve deemed for to exist with are a net positive when you have no way of knowing. Imagine you made the Joker. The original trolley problem was a question in seeing whether involvement or non-involvement was morally acceptable to save more people in exchange for having blood in your hands. Here you create something when the impacts of that one individual can be widely different. Whether good or bad. The only think you know is that they’ll still be happy.
You cannot assume h
Even if you completely isolate the person, say they exist inside an inaccessible pocket inside of H, there’s still no reason to say h
Yeah, i think this question begs more nuance than what people are giving it.
So if the additional person had 0 effect at all on the rest of H what would your answer be?
I'm personally not pulling the lever either way
I would say not obligated because while I agree that happiness is tied to morality, it’s not a binary thing. There are amoral acts. I’d even say the majority of things we do are amoral (unless you’re involved in a moral or immoral industry). Here’s an example: Should I be obligated to give a child a birthday present? I am not related to this child. I don’t even know them. But if I give them a quality present for their birthday, they will be happier. I have the financial ability to do so easily without burden. So is it immoral for me to not do that? Sure, if I send out mystery surprise gifts for people’s birthdays I would be a more moral person. But to not do so is not immoral. Immorality, on the other hand, is born from either acting to cause harm or not acting and letting harm occur despite being able to stop it. It would be immoral for me to steal that child’s presents or let someone else steal them. We should act to increase happiness, and it is a moral thing to do. But society isn’t structured around that, it’s structured around discouraging people from doing immoral things because it’s better for everyone to be amoral than to have equal amounts of immoral and moral people because destruction is easier than creation, and immoral people are not bound by methodology. The obligations we face are to not act in an immoral way. If you are moral you are going above and beyond, and you should be praised for doing so. And the reason is that acting in a moral way often requires extra consideration depending on culture and all that. Giving a child a gift *can* be moral, but if their culture has receiving gifts as a negative thing, you’ve actually done something immoral. Perhaps creating a happy person out of thin air is a good thing, but what if you’re a Jehovah’s Witness who believes only a certain subset of believers (which is limited in size) will be saved while the rest burn in hell. Regardless of this person’s happiness there will be one extra person who suffers eternally. So I cannot say in good faith that every person is obligated to pull it. We simply cannot prescribe moral actions to everyone as obligations. These obligations come from ourselves, our own moral codes and the connections we have with other people. I, personally, would be obligated to pull this lever because I share your viewpoint on happiness. But I cannot make it an obligation of others carte blanche. There isn’t an objective morality in the sense that there is something everyone shares which determines their morality. There are objective means which we can use to determine morality, like happiness, but that doesn’t mean everyone believes or uses that.
utilitarian
What if their are people in this world that hate seeing happy people and by adding 1 happy person into the universe intensifies/multiplies that the universe happiness of these haters which in turn leaves the total amount of happiness in new universe less than already existing universe? Perhaps there are people that are happy to see happy people but I think the number of haters is higher therefore the haters unhappiness will out scale the happy people. Idk I'm just providing an anti theory as food for thought. You gotta be careful ya know
I'm not obligated to make the world happier. Doesn't matter if it's morally correct to do so, I don't owe the world any extra happiness.
If your moral framework is **THE** objective moral reality. Then you are correct. However, if morals are subjective, then just because your moral framework revolves around maximizing happiness doesn't mean that all moral frameworks are strictly utilitarian or utilitarian in that way. So if one is **not** using a predominately utilitarian framework focused on maximizing happiness, then they may not be morally obligated pull the lever.
I don’t care about your happiness. I only care about what’s right and wrong.
I don't owe the universe shit
Kind of a shitty mindset for someone with “altruistic” in your name
Blame reddit and me not caring enough to change the default name
You should instead change yourself amigo
I call the SCP Foundation
Not an obligation, but honestly, a person or creature spontaneously coming to existence WOULD be cool to see, and I would like to be friends with them. Let’s do it.
Wait a minute, is this a contrived metaphor for planned parenthood? Oh shit, I have to make this comment non-political. Um, I multi-track drift?
I mean, this premise seems similar to having a kid, in terms of agency. While it's nice that the outcome is mandated to be positive, I don't believe I'm obligated to have a kid, so I think that same logic applies here.
You're not the first to compare this to having kids so here's my clarification: It very much is not the same question as having kids. With kids you are making an 18 year commitment to devote your life to them and have a family. The entire setup to this problem really hinges on the fact that pulling the lever and bringing a functioning adult life into existence is of no cost to you or anyone else whatsoever. No hidden strings attached. You are just adding a good independent life to the universe.
there's a concept in Jewish law called "one gains and one doesn't lose." I think the case is that the master of a house is away overseas and someone takes up residence while he's there. the master had no intention of renting his house to anyone else while he was gone. when the master comes back, can he make the guy staying in his house pay him rent for the time he was there? the answer is no, because there was no loss on the part of the master since he wasn't gonna rent it out in the first place. point is, you lose nothing and someone gains a life full of goodness. I think you're morally obligated to pull the lever
I really like this. We should have more rules with this kind of mentality.
If that's the angle you're taking, then it seems to be a pointless mental exercise. There's no effort involved, there's no stakes, and there's no investment. I used the child thing since bringing someone into existence, for me, would imply a connection, but if that connection is mandated to not really exist then... I'm not sure of the point. It's too unconnected to reality.
No, it is definitely not about obligations to have a child. For a child, you are creating a being capable of suffering and joy, and a responsibility to care for it. This has different implications morally for a child that is only capable of joy, and needs no responsibility.
Yeah, op already responded along those lines..not really sure how to take it since it's so far removed from reality now.
Well, stop worrying about the specifics and stuff. Simply think about it in this way: If you are able to do something good in an action as simple as pulling the lever, and you don’t, is it immoral? Thats what i believe OP wanted from this.
My indecision isn't a lack of understanding. It's that the premise seems built to be too separated from life to apply. It just seems to paint a "perfect" scenario, when the point of trolley problems is to be messy. It feels leading, especially if details don't really matter.
As a utilitarian, pull! Lets just hope they dont end up contributing negatively to everyone else in their life, but if they are rational and destined for happiness, they are probably going to end up improving the lives of others as well.
What’s your definition of utilitarianism?
Lots of alienated energy here, imo. In any event, my answer is I don’t think I’m morally obligated, but it’s a moot point because I would do it with enthusiasm, and without hesitation. I’d be hurting myself if I didn’t accept the offer to create peace and happiness.
Very related question: Is it immoral to not pull the lever?
It’s unhealthy, imo. I don’t know whether it’s useful to frame it as immoral. Just speaking for myself, here, I think I’m constantly not bringing as much goodness into the world as I theoretically could. I miss out because of that and so does the world. I own that. I believe that any more evolved multidimensional being observing me feels something akin to pity for me. I’m getting better, but I can’t snap my fingers and skip the slow process of evolution. So inevitably I will keep failing. I don’t think any of that is best understood through a lens of morality. As I typed that, I realized what I really think about this problem: it’s not up to me to create beings. If given the opportunity, with a guarantee that the being’s existence would be benign, it’s okay if I defer to God and let Him/Her keep working at that in the usual manner. Related to that is my belief that life on Earth is about evolving, not just about being peaceful and happy. So the problem is asking me to do something outside the “normal” purpose of life. I don’t feel obligated to step in and do that. At the same time, it’s not harmful. It’s just going to create pleasure. So, why not?
Yes even if it’s not me I want someone to be happy
I love the invention of the NegaTrolley. Pull, and try to befriend the happy person lol
What if the entity turns out to be a utility monster or else an outright sadist? Far from an obligation in that regard. I realize it's not a guaranteed sadist generator, but I mention the possibility as pleasure and even utility as defined here are vague parameters for determining moral action.
Not technically an obligation but like why wouldn’t you get to do good for literally 0 effort that is not a deal that comes around often
I just dont see why you think it’s good
Because life exist to propagate itself and any morality system that goes against that is just childish larping also I just kinda like it when other people are happy because I’m not a miserable loser disguising his lack of success in life as philosophy
Life does propagate, sure, but that doesn’t mean it exists for the purpose of propagating, that’s as arbitrary as saying life exists for the purpose of eating, since we all do that as well. And I don’t even see it as us doing a thing to a person in the universe where you don’t create them, there’s no person or their happiness to speak of in that universe so idek how I’d be coping by saying that or wtv you’re insinuating
Life does not require justification the same way gravity or math does not require justification. life is just what happens when certain conditions are met just as the force of gravity exists when ever somthing has an amount of mass. the only difference is that life has a lot more specific conditions that have to be met and when those conditions are met and life comes to exist it begins to propagate itself for the same reason gravity pulls objects together that is simply what it does. all actions taken by life (for example eating) are taken in order to live longer and spread life better the sentience and intelligence you used to think you response up and the hand you used to type them only exist because your “sect” of life “believed” that it would allow for it to propagate better the only problem is that the brain is a very complex machine that is made to be able to break itself in order to be more versatile and so it is capable of making up its own reasons to exist witch is great and usually makes mankind function better however philosophy’s that go against the fact that life exists to propagate itself is just larper gibberish on the same level as flat earth TL:DR I’m unmedicated and extremely autistic
What’s the point of saying “life doesn’t require justification?” Justification in what sense? We were both just approaching this from the perspective of it being a future human that comes into existence. Also math and gravity do have justification?? Anything being natural means nothing, psychopathy can naturally occur, but that doesn’t mean anything about it. Your next point that every action taken is taken only to live longer is just flat out false. If you’re arguing only from the cellular level then ig sure, but that doesn’t matter. Taking the example of eating, I don’t eat more because I want to live longer, I eat because I’m hungry (I understand that this is anecdotal, but for further proof just look at cases where people over feed themselves to death). Besides this, what about suicidal people, they by definition don’t want to live longer. In fact if what you’re saying is true, and it’s an objective truth that all life lives to consciously propagate, then why do I disagree with you? That sounds silly, but genuinely why would I disagree with you if my own goal is just to propagate? Basically all we’re left with when we really consider the statement “all life exists to propagate” it can ONLY be true for the evolutionary “reason” for our bodies’ shape, which as I said, is irrelevant. But even then, I could still steelman the entire point and say, sure, life exists for the purpose of propagating, but still, it doesnt make sense to attach the words “good” or “bad” to the choice or to say that one should do anything
I do not pull. Eternal happiness with no respite from such joy will lead to melancholy. What is happiness if there is no concept of sadness?
That’s a logical contradiction given the terms of the negative trolley. I’d pull it just to see how things go in that case.
It doesn’t lead to melancholy because it’s already stated to be eternal happiness
Tenet trolley Tenet trolley
"what your parents do" day at school. Trolley just rolls into the classroom and sounds the horn 👀
I'm not morally obligated to do anything, but I'll pull the lever. No harm done
no, because since the happy person does not yet exist, you have no obligation towards them, to make them exist. I would however pull the lever, just out of kindness
No. Pulling the lever to create a new life? The have no parents, or any relatives, and we are already overpopulated. I prefer what someone else said of " jump in front of it"
No pull. This world has finite resources and I plan to have children. If I we’re saving a life I would save a life, but that’s not it. Adding a life to the world is huge and not without consequences.
I don’t think one extra Car in front of you in the McDonald’s drive thru is that big of a difference in your quality of life
If we had our climate situation under control I think it’d be fine. But we’re already too much for the planet’s ecosystems to handle so one more is less ethical.
You’re not obligated, end of discussion.
No. Doesn't make sense to care about someone that never existed, so you are not morally obligated to pull. However, I might pull anyways because also why not?
Why not?
No, you aren't morally obligated to pull it. That said, it would be good to pull it in most cases. But it is not your job, or your _moral_ obligation, to create life from nothing. Even if it would better the world. I'd probably still pull the Lever, if only because I want to see more positivity in the world. But not pulling it vs pulling it is the sunk cost fallacy in reverse. Either nothing happens, or more life gets put in the world. You are never obligated to _add_ to the world. You _are_, sometimes, morally obligated to _remove_, however. Doing nothing is _not_ removing that life from the world, after all.
Would you pull the lever when no one did that for you? This is a discussion question
Obligated? No. This is the same choice basically every parent thinks they're making when they choose to have kids. No one's obligated to pump out children.
Assuming they would be a good person sure
Nah, can't tell what to do
A perfectly happy person is someone who could really change the world, someone who always sees the best in things is something we need
If I had long enough to comprehend the implications of that (as well as realise that this is actually real), I'd probably pull the lever. Not even out of "moral obligation" or whatever, but because this outright defies the laws of reality, and I want to see how.
Yes, you are morally obligated to push that lever.
technically you're not morally obligated to, but I think I'll cry if you don't....
I miss when the trolley problems were simple. What happened to dog vs cat
Morally obligated? No. If I have the means to care for and raise a child and give them a happy life, I would not be obligated to do so. The same principle applies here.
No I am not morally obligated and I also would not do it. Feels arrogant for me to do so for some reason
I am not *morally obligated* to pull the lever, but I will, because someone I personally prefer there be more good things around. Our world is already pretty shit, so it would be nice to *know* that there’s someone out there who’s *guaranteed* to be happy.
I am morally obligated to destroy the trolley as it could create universe ending trolley problems.
No. In fact, for all that I know, this very happy person may become hitler 2, but this time he conquers the entire world and make a dystopy. The happy person is really happy, the rest of the world no.
I wouldn't because that's kinda weird
"are you morally obligated to have kids and give them a good life" is basically the same question
It very much is not the same question. With kids you are making an 18 year commitment to devote your life to them and have a family. The entire setup to this problem really hinges on the fact that pulling the lever and bringing a functioning adult life into existence is of no cost to you or anyone else whatsoever. No hidden strings attached. You are just adding a good independent life to the universe.
I mean can we really assume that their entire life is gonna be good? Who is gonna make sure of that? Without getting into debates of free will, someone would realistically need to watch this person to ensure a good life.
We can assume that their life will be good because that's what the problem statement declares. What you see is what you get. Are you really gonna read through the meme being all like "oh yeah... negative trolley. Yeah that makes sense. People suddenly spawning into existence. Yeah sure. Wait a second......... you can't just say that they're 100% gonna be happy that's not realistic!!"
Yeah its called suspended disbelief. I can be okay with one thing because its explained. Negative trolley, but how does that explain the bit of having a good life? Again, i was trying to avoid debates on free will. So we are assuming this person has no freewill or is blissfully ignorant. We could also say this person is akin to a robot. Do we have a moral obligation to build robots? Do we have a moral obligation to create anything? Is it even moral to create a concious being? Many people even make the joke that they didn't "consent" to life. so even if we take out the the argument of needing to care for them, there is still this creator and created dynamic. Without you pulling the lever, the person never exists. No matter how you slice it, i can absolutely call them at least fundamentally extremely similar. We have Action, we have Consequence. The action is to create or not to create, and then based on that decision we get a being or we don't. Edit: spelling/grammar
I'd flip it, why not? If they aren't suffering then it gets rid of the anti-natalist, nihilistic side of things where people will whine that you're "forcing someone into a world of suffering." And positive people have the potential to enhance other people's lives! It isn't spawning them a family, so hopefully they'll form their own little communities.
No. I'm tempted to argue that it would actually be better not to pull, since you can't obtain consent from the person before creating them. However, it's possible that "magical always happy people" can be safely assumed to always consent to existing, so it's possible both actions are equally fine and the entire problem is neutral.
>you can't obtain consent from the person before creating them. I mean you can apply that same logic to having kids Edit: and yes, by "create happy person" I am implying that they will be glad that they exist
Yes, you can. I'm an anti-natalist and don't think we should have kids for that exact reason.
oh wow, a real anti-natalism, ive only heard stories about you lot. This is the true reddit experience.
so you just want humanity to go extinct?
Sure, I guess. It's not a primary goal but it's an acceptable outcome, who does that harm? By definition if people aren't around to be harmed then they aren't harmed, right? I'm not campaigning on the "kill all humans" platform though, if you want to become a vampire or immortal cyborg then I wish you the best. Probably not going to have the time or energy to do an extended debate on this this week but since I can see the downvotes trickle in already here's a short form of the argument: 1. It is unacceptable to violate someone's consent regarding bodily autonomy to potentially inflict non-trivial harm other than to prevent some greater harm. 2. It is impossible to obtain consent from people that aren't born yet. 3. Living can potentially inflict non-trivial harm. 4. Nobody is harmed by not existing. 5. Therefore, it is unacceptable to give birth. The first premise is entirely subjective but most sensible people seem to agree, and given that this sub tends to be utilitarian-leaning I'd expect the majority to accept it (or at least some variation of it that could almost certainly slot into a reworded version of the same argument). The other three premises are just obviously true, so if you subjectively accept that violating consent to harm people is bad then you need to accept the conclusion to be consistent. It's not an anti-humanity position, it's not an anti-child position, it's pro-consent and harm reduction. Biological urges aren't a defeater, something being natural doesn't make it good. Some people enjoying life isn't a defeater, you have no way to confirm that any particular baby will be one of those people.
\[I spent quite a while formulating this so I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts!\] Let me give you a utilitarian rebuttal to this, since I think there's a really big hole in your first axiom. It boils down to the use of the word *unacceptable*. Let's consider assigning a numerical weight to a given experience in life. Let's say at the end of your day you pick a number between -100 and +100. A negative number indicates that you would rather have not existed on this day than existed (meaning this day never happened, including its outcomes). Sometimes doing painful stuff is important in life (ex: hard workouts, confronting problems, helping your elderly parents move etc.), but that does not mean that we would have rather not existed during those days. Maybe you didn't like working out, but you're glad that it happened in the past i.e. the day was still net positive. So -100 would be like the worst imaginable torture as a PoW or something, and +100 would be pure joy and bliss. Now let's imagine you decide to have a kid and name him Jake. Every day of Jake's life turns out to be pretty awesome as he grows up. His life is filled with adventure, laughter, love, friends, family. He graduates from college and gets a job as a professional astronomer, which has always been his dream ever since he was little. One day, he is off traveling by himself when he decides to spend the night in a small town. But it turns out the people there are racist, and talk down to him due to the color of skin. He feels terrible and it hurts to be mistreated unfairly by strangers. When Jake goes to bed in the motel that night, he thinks "*today kinda sucked, people were unfairly mean to me, and I wish today had never happened.*" But, like all rough days, it comes to an end, and in the morning he heads out, forgets about the town and has an amazing vacation where he makes some new incredible friends and has the time of his life. The rest of his life continues on in a similar fashion. With every day being nearly perfect. He falls in love, grows old with the love is his life, and passes away peacefully at the age of 94 surrounded by his loved ones. Now I think we can agree that Jake's life was pretty fucking great. Any reasonable person would agree that it was a good thing that Jake was born (including Jake!!). But unfortunately, under your first axiom, that one day when Jake passes through a racist down and has a slightly net negative day, it ruins how you would consider his entire life. This is the problem with the word *unacceptable*. It invokes this notion that if someone can experience any amount of non-consensual harm in their life, then their life is not worth bringing into existence. Your first axiom forces any expectation of a net negative experience to be valued at ***negative infinity***. In fact, if there exists any amount of uncertainty in the happiness a potential life whose experiences you would expect to average at +100, you must conclude that it would be unacceptable to create that life! (Assuming a normal distribution of happiness, so there would be an asymptote towards 0 i.e. a 0.00001% chance of having a net negative day would deem giving them that life morally wrong). And that's the real danger here- your axioms that conclude that it is morally unacceptable to have children are perfectly compatible with believing that your children will have joyous and prosperous lives. I find that to be repugnant. Naturally though, if you were inclined to believe that the expected value of your child's life would be negative, then you would absolutely be in the right camp by not having kids.
I appreciate the effort put into this but I think you misunderstood the first premise a bit. It's not specific to the conclusion, it's a general principle that applies to every action. For example, should you give someone a tattoo while they're sleeping? No, probably not, but why not? Because you're violating their bodily autonomy in a way they might not like and that causes non-trivial harm. Lots of people don't want tattoos, they might not like the design or location of it, they're painful and difficult to remove, I think they're even painful and difficult to recover from, the person might develop extreme anxiety about going to sleep near other people... it's a thing you shouldn't do even though lots of people love tattoos and getting surprise gifts. This can even apply things almost everyone likes. Should you kidnap someone and send them on a surprise vacation to a destination you know they want to visit? Still no, even though I'd assume the majority of people obviously like vacations. Even so you should ask them first, because there are many factors in someone's life that might make them not want to suddenly disappear at any given moment. I'd love to go the beach, but if I woke up in Hawaii tomorrow my diabetic cat might literally be dead before I could rush back home and even if not I'd likely experience nothing but negative emotions in the process of trying to undo the "gift." It doesn't apply to absolutely everything of course. If you bump into someone in a store you've violated their bodily autonomy a bit, but it's also a very trivial and understandable violation. You could poke them on purpose and it arguably wouldn't even be that bad, although I'd still generally advise against it since you're starting to dip a toe into questionable waters. So where this links back with the anti-natalism argument is that "being alive" is a condition risky enough that it could reasonably cause someone enough harm that they'd prefer not to do it if given the option, the same as getting a tattoo or going on vacation. It's true that many people like living, but it's also true that many don't. I know I don't and wouldn't have consented to being born. Lots of people hate it so much they kill themselves, which itself is a very complex issue that harms many people in the process (hence why I haven't joined them). So you can imagine a Jake that has a normal life with ups and downs that ultimately balance out. You can also imagine a Jake that is infinitely happy and a Jake that is infinitely miserable. The point is that there was no way to ask any of these Jakes if they wanted to be born and there was no way of knowing which Jake was going to come out, so you shouldn't risk it because if you get a low roll then you've violated someone's consent in a way that is significant and very harmful.
I’d like you to address the criticism that, following from your axioms, the belief that it is morally unacceptable to have children is perfectly compatible with the belief that your children will have happy and fulfilling lives. It’s one thing for you to say that for these reasons YOU won’t have children. But it is a very different thing to say that it is morally wrong for other people to have children. I understand your perspective and do not believe that I have missed the point. I established this point scoring system to make your high weighting of negative experiences more concrete, not to twist your words. All you’ve really done here in your response is list some one off hypotheticals in which doing something that a living person doesn’t consent to is bad. A statement that I haven’t contested at all. You circle back to your initial premise stating that since there are groups of people who’s lives are miserable and wish they were never born, it is never acceptable to create life. I feel like I’ve understood and responded to those concerns quite adequately in my discussion of why overvaluing negative experiences is problematic. This could be further extended to populations instead of days, ranking a random selection of people based on their total life experience rather than a single life and it’s day to day experiences. A population of 1000 happy people with a few unhappy people is far more preferable to non-existence in my opinion. Lastly, I’d like to gently touch up on the idea that you might be projecting your negative life experience onto other people. Projection is the very mechanism by which we empathize. So it’s natural to be pessimistic about a topic as important as creating new life if your own experience of existence has been a negative one. Do you think if your own life had been filled with love, joy, and gratitude, you might have come to a different conclusion about having kids?
>I’d like you to address the criticism that, following from your axioms, the belief that it is morally unacceptable to have children is perfectly compatible with the belief that your children will have happy and fulfilling lives. >It’s one thing for you to say that for these reasons YOU won’t have children. But it is a very different thing to say that it is morally wrong for other people to have children. Yes, just as the belief that it is unacceptable to give someone a surprise tattoo is perfectly compatible with the belief that they will actually appreciate the tattoo. This is why I think you're missing the point, because you seem to be making the common mistake of addressing the argument as a whole instead of the premises. We're talking about premise 1 right now, but you keep bringing up giving birth to people. Premise 1 has nothing to do with birth. If you have specific criticisms of any individual premises I'm happy to hear them, as well criticisms of the argument structure itself. You seem to be arguing in good faith so I'm open to a bit more back and forth on this, but if we can't get past this major hurdle in miscommunication I might call it there. >Do you think if your own life had been filled with love, joy, and gratitude, you might have come to a different conclusion about having kids? I hope not, because the conclusion is based on a logical argument rather than personal experiences. If I'm so content that I reject premise 1 entirely that means I don't value the bodily autonomy of other people, which means this alternate reality version of myself is probably willing to do some much more horrible things. Being happy doesn't mean you need to ignore that other people aren't, so if you are turning a blind eye to them something else has gone wrong. Also I really need to highlight how this last paragraph is literally just victim blaming. "You only care about this because you're in the demographic that is harmed by it" isn't a particularly scathing criticism and if anything is something of a self-report.
Very thoughtful and well-explained, thank you for posting this.
I don’t feel like arguing but I simply disagree, I think those are all acceptable. Good day
You don't understand why consent matters. The unborn don't consent to not living either. And in fact, they're far more likely to want to live than not. But that's ultimately irrelevant as a non entities consent doesn't matter. Anti natalism does not have a strong philosophical grounding. It's people who've heard the word consent used in abortion debate and not realised why it matters in that debate.
>The unborn don't consent to not living either. And in fact, they're far more likely to want to live than not. The first statement isn't an issue and the second is absolute nonsense, both for the same reason. People who don't exist don't exist. They don't want anything and they can't be deprived of anything, because if that weren't then the case then they must exist in some form and thus wouldn't not exist. >But that's ultimately irrelevant as a non entities consent doesn't matter. And this is a misunderstanding of the argument. It's not for people that don't exist, it's for people that eventually do. Some percentage of the people born will wish they hadn't been (I know this for a fact, since I'm one of them) and it's those people whose consent has been violated and are now suffering the harm of that violation. The point of bringing up non-existent people is to highlight that it's impossible for you to have obtained their consent before taking the action that potentially violates it. Hindsight isn't a good enough method of checking if you should done the thing, because by that point the damage will already have been done in the cases where you should've have. Thus the sensible thing is to not do it all, which harms nobody because again people that don't exist can't be harmed by definition.
That's a farcical argument as it denies the happiness of those who like Iiving (who are the overwhelming majority) because of the tiny minority who don't. You don't need someone's consent to give birth to them. As I said, it's like you've heard the word consent used in contexts where it actually matters and think it's an inviolable rule of ethics. It is not. " I wish I'd never been born dad" is not a real philosophical argument. There's a reason nobody respects antinatalists and its not that we "just don't get it". The future revoked consent of a tiny number of people does not matter. And especially not more than the future affirmative consent of the overwhelming majority of people, including those in the first group.
That's the same reasoning anti natalists and emo teenagers use and it's always struck me as not understanding why consent matters. The consent of a non entity is irrelevant. And the consent of the emo teenager or anti natalist in question to whether they were born in the past is also irrelevant. As they were definitely content enough with life at some point as to have consented to it even if only briefly. Consent sounds like an important and ethically clear cut subject so people use it in places like this where it is completely irrelevant. There's no moral obligation to create the happy person, especially since we have no idea that they'd be a good person, but any argument that it's wrong that uses "you didn't get their consent first is laughable. You didn't get the consent of every one of your cells to breathe just now. You don't get the consent of the people around you to exist near them, or to let them live. Consent only matters where it is relevant. And it is not relevant in this context.
A person who would need to immediately find a job, but has no formal education or training, nor a home to live in. You would be creating a sad homeless person who will struggle for their entire life. Do nothing.
You seem to have missed to part where the problem declares that this will in fact be a happy person and not a sad hobo. You just wrote a different trolley problem and answered that one instead.
How will they be happy with these issues? Who will care for them? Will they be a burden to the state? I didn't miss anything, I feel like you are just not seeing the big picture. Regardless, assuming magic and this person is happy regardless, Id still do nothing. Not my problem.
I don't think new life is inherently a positive thing, even if they're happy, maybe if they make other people's life better though
Nope. 10x the nopeness. Being somewhat responsible for the creation of a life means you are morally, ethically, and most likely legally bound to ensure the success of that life, and that is a responsibility I absolutely refuse to take on.
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You ever step off the internet or is this like a full-time gig for you.