Optimism and pessimism are not merely emotional preferences

[rousseau]

There are lots of things to do with the truth, and I don't claim that there is only one right way of dealing with it. I guess the point I am making is more about the compatibility between life and a (more or less) widely accepted set of preferences on the one hand, and the compatibility between life and a (more or less) universal set of moral norms on the other hand. Anybody can freely eschew these preferences or norms and embrace life, as a matter of choice. But they can't have it both ways. To favor life above all things, just in itself, as something worth preserving and perpetuating regardless of its nature, is to give up on some fairly foundational moral principles. To acknowledge that people everywhere want/need things that are either withheld or confiscated over the natural course of life is to acknowledge (as you just did) that life has problems.

[And I note that you considered the existence of life's inherent problems an objective fact, not a matter of preference, which cannot be said about life's positive qualities (otherwise you would have said it by now). This is really the only concession that matters for pessimism: that happy and sad experiences are the subjective icing upon a problematic cake. As long as life's problems are situated in this absolute realm, while a happy or sad reaction to them remains an individual preference, my thread title stands.]

The gist I get from your posts is that you have a conception that every person alive is just mulling from day to day, trudging toward death and in a constant state of cognitive dissonance. This isn't my experience with the world at all. I notice people having bad days, and good days, but a lot of people around me seem pretty well content and not really concerned with life in some vague, abstract sense.

I don't think I can be any clearer that this is not my conception, and it doesn't make any difference to my view whether people are content or not. Being content with life is not incompatible with life being bad, just like surviving and even thriving in a penal colony is not incompatible with a penal colony being a violation of your freedom. I don't accept the argument that life in a penal colony is not so bad once you get used to it, so people should accept being tossed into one against their will or without their permission.

We can also apply a bit of logic to the bolded. The word 'problem' is itself value laden. We could just as easily call them obstacles, which are intrinsic to life. When we apply value to obstacles it also comes down to perspective, and the value we apply to them are also balanced against the enjoyable parts of life.

 

[ruby sparks]

It's a shame, because I think it's always on the verge of being understood, and I feel like you might think I'm belittling people who enjoy living and look forward to the future, etc. The whole idea is that such an attitude is inserted into a surrounding environment that obliges us to adopt it. My interest is in the nature and value of that overarching environment/structure, and what can be said about it in the most objective way (again, realizing that the best that can be done is to appeal to fairly universal values in doing so). I don't disparage anyone for happiness, I just don't like it when they use their personal happiness to validate the decision to procreate, not realizing that any happiness is at best a tentative victory over the very thing they are giving their offspring, which they need not give at all.

Let's say, hypothetically, that a way is found to 'switch off' the genes (or whatever) for human ageing, so that there would be no ageing/decay and no death (from old age at least). How much would that affect what you are saying?

Would you still say that the 'surrounding (objective) backdrop' is inherently something deserving of pessimism (of the philosophical sort that you mean) or, is ageing and death basically the reason you are putting forward?

We might have to include in such a hypothetical scenario some sort of system whereby over-population was controlled.

Perhaps even, we could imagine a world where the human population has also been substantially reduced from what it is now. To 1 billion? That's what it was not that long ago (the year 1804 or so I read).

 

[PyramidHead]

It's a shame, because I think it's always on the verge of being understood, and I feel like you might think I'm belittling people who enjoy living and look forward to the future, etc. The whole idea is that such an attitude is inserted into a surrounding environment that obliges us to adopt it. My interest is in the nature and value of that overarching environment/structure, and what can be said about it in the most objective way (again, realizing that the best that can be done is to appeal to fairly universal values in doing so). I don't disparage anyone for happiness, I just don't like it when they use their personal happiness to validate the decision to procreate, not realizing that any happiness is at best a tentative victory over the very thing they are giving their offspring, which they need not give at all.

Let's say, hypothetically, that a way is found to 'switch off' the genes (or whatever) for human ageing, so that there would be no ageing/decay and no death (from old age at least). How much would that affect what you are saying?

Would you still say that the 'surrounding (objective) backdrop' is inherently something deserving of pessimism (of the philosophical sort that you mean) or, is ageing and death basically the reason you are putting forward?

We might have to include in such a hypothetical scenario some sort of system whereby over-population was controlled.

Perhaps even, we could imagine a world where the human population has also been substantially reduced from what it is now. To 1 billion? That's what it was not that long ago (the year 1804 or so I read).

It would make things relatively better, but the problem is in the laws of physics, not in an incidental configuration of our biology. Whatever you may consider good or valuable, chances are it comes with an entropic cost. Chances are that it needs to be conceived, organized, and intentionally erected through effort. Chances are it would take much less to destroy it. Chances are that some part of your act of putting it together has wronged somebody, somewhere, in some way. Chances are that the negative impact of losing this thing is more acute and long-lasting than the benefit you derived from having it, which was perhaps fleeting and vulnerable. Chances are that even a perfect cure for natural aging at the genetic level will only postpone the process of decay from the rest of the universe, from freak accidents to infections to violence. This is the structural asymmetry Cabrera is talking about, and it is remarkably stable over social and technological changes. I can't discount the possibility that a utopia where this has all been conquered is theoretically possible, but I can only evaluate life as it is actually lived.

 

[ruby sparks]

It's a shame, because I think it's always on the verge of being understood, and I feel like you might think I'm belittling people who enjoy living and look forward to the future, etc. The whole idea is that such an attitude is inserted into a surrounding environment that obliges us to adopt it. My interest is in the nature and value of that overarching environment/structure, and what can be said about it in the most objective way (again, realizing that the best that can be done is to appeal to fairly universal values in doing so). I don't disparage anyone for happiness, I just don't like it when they use their personal happiness to validate the decision to procreate, not realizing that any happiness is at best a tentative victory over the very thing they are giving their offspring, which they need not give at all.

Let's say, hypothetically, that a way is found to 'switch off' the genes (or whatever) for human ageing, so that there would be no ageing/decay and no death (from old age at least). How much would that affect what you are saying?

Would you still say that the 'surrounding (objective) backdrop' is inherently something deserving of pessimism (of the philosophical sort that you mean) or, is ageing and death basically the reason you are putting forward?

We might have to include in such a hypothetical scenario some sort of system whereby over-population was controlled.

Perhaps even, we could imagine a world where the human population has also been substantially reduced from what it is now. To 1 billion? That's what it was not that long ago (the year 1804 or so I read).

It would make things relatively better, but the problem is in the laws of physics, not in an incidental configuration of our biology. Whatever you may consider good or valuable, chances are it comes with an entropic cost. Chances are that it needs to be conceived, organized, and intentionally erected through effort. Chances are it would take much less to destroy it. Chances are that some part of your act of putting it together has wronged somebody, somewhere, in some way. Chances are that the negative impact of losing this thing is more acute and long-lasting than the benefit you derived from having it, which was perhaps fleeting and vulnerable. Chances are that even a perfect cure for natural aging at the genetic level will only postpone the process of decay from the rest of the universe, from freak accidents to infections to violence. This is the structural asymmetry Cabrera is talking about, and it is remarkably stable over social and technological changes. I can't discount the possibility that a utopia where this has all been conquered is theoretically possible, but I can only evaluate life as it is actually lived.

I think it is impossible to disagree with you in principle.

So, we are stuck in a non-utopia. And reasoning about it will not change that. Indeed, we might say that it is our ability to reason (or at least to think) which causes the problem. Were we not sentient, there would arguably be no problem or problems. Yes, the inherent facts you cite would still pertain (death, pain, struggle, entropy etc) but they would not be 'problems'. I doubt a bird foraging for worms has 'problems' even if we called them that on its behalf, probably by projecting something about our own 'cursed' knowledge predicament onto it.

So, let's not look for final or perfect solutions to the human condition. Let's take for granted that there probably aren't any. There (probably) is no point just as there (probably) is no god or heaven. You're talking about realist apointism, essentially, I think.

So then, after acknowledging all of what you (and the philosophical pessimists) say, agreeing with the diagnosis as it were, what is or are the best available response(s)?

I am not assuming, of course, that it is necessarily nihilism and I do not think that you are suggesting that. And I am fine with assuming that none of them are a perfect response or solution.

 

[rousseau]

There are lots of things to do with the truth, and I don't claim that there is only one right way of dealing with it. I guess the point I am making is more about the compatibility between life and a (more or less) widely accepted set of preferences on the one hand, and the compatibility between life and a (more or less) universal set of moral norms on the other hand. Anybody can freely eschew these preferences or norms and embrace life, as a matter of choice. But they can't have it both ways. To favor life above all things, just in itself, as something worth preserving and perpetuating regardless of its nature, is to give up on some fairly foundational moral principles. To acknowledge that people everywhere want/need things that are either withheld or confiscated over the natural course of life is to acknowledge (as you just did) that life has problems.

[And I note that you considered the existence of life's inherent problems an objective fact, not a matter of preference, which cannot be said about life's positive qualities (otherwise you would have said it by now). This is really the only concession that matters for pessimism: that happy and sad experiences are the subjective icing upon a problematic cake. As long as life's problems are situated in this absolute realm, while a happy or sad reaction to them remains an individual preference, my thread title stands.]

The gist I get from your posts is that you have a conception that every person alive is just mulling from day to day, trudging toward death and in a constant state of cognitive dissonance. This isn't my experience with the world at all. I notice people having bad days, and good days, but a lot of people around me seem pretty well content and not really concerned with life in some vague, abstract sense.

I don't think I can be any clearer that this is not my conception, and it doesn't make any difference to my view whether people are content or not. Being content with life is not incompatible with life being bad, just like surviving and even thriving in a penal colony is not incompatible with a penal colony being a violation of your freedom. I don't accept the argument that life in a penal colony is not so bad once you get used to it, so people should accept being tossed into one against their will or without their permission.

We can also apply a bit of logic to the bolded. The word 'problem' is itself value laden. We could just as easily call them obstacles, which are intrinsic to life. When we apply value to obstacles it also comes down to perspective, and the value we apply to them are also balanced against the enjoyable parts of life.

I would re-iterate that I don't think the OP is wrong per se, just not universally true. If someone interprets life that way it's just as valid as someone not interpreting it that way.

When you tie this back to the main theme of anti-natalism I think it's important to keep this in mind. Child-rearing is natural for a lot of people for the very reason that life holds no negative connotations to them. To many not having children would seem like an odd, and strange idea, and I think they'd raise an eyebrow at someone suggesting that what they were doing is immoral because life is inherently bad.

 

[PyramidHead]

So then, after acknowledging all of what you (and the philosophical pessimists) say, agreeing with the diagnosis as it were, what is or are the best available response(s)?

I am not assuming, of course, that it is necessarily nihilism and I do not think that you are suggesting that. And I am fine with assuming that none of them are a perfect response or solution.

There are many things to do with the truth, and it comes down to what your priorities are. Cabrera suggests that there is a way to salvage some semblance of ethics from the impossibility of basing ethical behavior on the inherent value of life. He refers to a "negative ethics", grounded in a recognition of our common lack of value as living things. I will quote here in full his excellent breakdown of what that might look like (bolding mine):

Steps towards Negative Ethics.

1. Throughout the history (of philosophy and of humankind) an intrinsic positive value has been given to human life. Because human life has this intrinsic positive value, procreating is good (or more: it is the most sacred and sublime moral value) and committing suicide is bad (or more: it is the worst, the greatest moral sin).

2. By intrinsic value I mean: whether life has a metaphysical value (as in Christianity) or it has a practical value (as in Kant); in any case, there is an ultimate value, which makes human life inviolable. Ethics, in this tradition, is understood as an activity aiming to determine how-to-live a life guided by that supreme, basic value, intrinsic to human life.

3. Negative ethics starts with a negative ontology that presents life as having an intrinsic value, but negative. Therefore, it primarily denies agnosticism, the idea that in life there is good and bad things, and that neither a positive nor a negative value can be derived from human life. Nevertheless, it is the very being of life itself that is bad, not in the sense of a metaphysical evil, but in the sense of a sensitive and moral uneasiness.

4. The very being of human life is a terminal structure that starts to end from the beginning, and that causes uneasiness in the sensitive level, through the phenomena of pain and boredom, and in the moral level, through the phenomena of moral disqualification. We are thrown into a body always subjected to disease, in the fast process of aging, decline and final decomposition, in obligatory neighborhood with others in the same situation, which leaves little space for mutual moral consideration.

5. Positive values do exist, but they are all of the order of the beings (and not of the order of Being) and they are all of a vindictive character, or reactive to the structural uneasiness of Being; moreover, they pay high ontological prices (when a value is created, new disvalues are also, new conditions of non-consideration of other people, etc. Positive values are thus, inevitably intra-worldly (or ontic), reactive and onerous. And powerfully imaginative (almost hallucinatory), in order not to realize the pitiful nature of our terminal condition (in order to forget we are a declining and decomposing body).

6. The philosophical ethics have regularly supposed that life is intrinsically valuable, and that it is possible to live an ethical life guided by this value. Negative ethics states that life intrinsically causes sensitive and moral uneasiness and that an ethical life is built with intra-worldly ethical values, reactive and onerous, within the structural uneasiness, and that an ethical life is possible only inside this existential framework. Negative ontology (which is a naturalized ontology, to the extent that the characteristics of being are those of nature) replaces, therefore, the rationalist affirmative ontology of tradition, in the light of which all European ethical theories we know were built.

7. Specifically, attending particular ethical theories, humans are unable of being virtuous (Aristotle), or of observing the categorical imperative (Kant) or of fighting for the happiness of the majority (Mill), fully and radically; they are always conditioned; when we face the whole context, we are aware of not being ethical (in the terms of any of those theories). To avoid having to go into the nuances of each ethical theory, we understand that all of them demand, at least, the consideration of other people’s interests, the non-manipulation, and non-damage (we call this FEA, fundamental ethical articulation). So, to be morally disqualified means violating FEA.

8. In this level, negative ethics simply shows that, when the usual and current affirmative categories are seriously taken into consideration, the result shall be that all human actions are morally disqualified at some point, in some respect, at some moment or situation of its performance or compliance. This is important because it is not the case that “negative” categories lead to these results, but affirmative categories, when radicalized, do the job. This suggests that all ethical theories we know perform an internal differentiation within general moral disqualification, declaring to be moral some of the disqualified actions, and disqualifying others in a sort of second-order disqualification.

9. But why do we have the strong impression that ethics exists and that we can be moral agents? When ethics talk about happiness, virtue or duty, when they accept the difference between good and bad people, they are concealing the structural disvalue of the being of human life and forgetting the reactive and onerous character, intra-worldly invented, of positive values. Actually, we are all morally disqualified; disrespectful people do not constitute a small group of exceptions. All ethical theories that we know, that we read on our books of philosophy, are “second degree ethics”, hiding and concealing, through all sort of mechanisms, the structural disvalue, the moral disqualification, the situated and partial character of all positive value. (The usual ethics are built within the framework of a radical ethical impossibility).

10. The fundamental deforming factor in ethics is the persistent belief that life is something good, that some people are good because they follow the norms of life, and others (few, exceptional) are bad for transgressing them; without seeing that goodness is built inside a fundamental evil, in a concealing and never gratuitous way (without paying prices). The impossibility of ethics is hidden in everyday life, and also in the prevailing affirmative philosophical thinking, guided by the ideas of the value of life and of the exceptional nature of “evil”.

11. As a corollary of this view of things, procreation can be seen as an act morally problematic and, in many cases, simply irresponsible, since it consists in putting a being into existence knowing he is being placed in a terminal, in friction and corruptible (sensitively and morally) structure, where the positive values will always be reactive and will pay high ethical and sensitive prices. Even the ontically responsible procreations are morally problematic, because the most one can give to children is the capability of defending themselves against the terminal structure of being, in a scope of necessary disrespect of others in some degree. Besides giving them a structural disvalue, this is done in self benefit and in a clear exercise of manipulation of the other, using him or her as a means.

12. Another important corollary is that suicide, far from being, in this perspective, the more horrible moral sin, turns into an act that has better chances of being moral than many others, to the extent it empties the spaces of struggle against the other; even though it may also damages, it does so not differently from the rest of human acts; the suicidal act is as reactive and onerous as the other acts, and maybe less (since it is about a sort of self-sacrifice, of stopping to defend oneself); and it is, certainly, the last disrespectful act. After all, we cause more damage staying than we do leaving. (In every way, suicide does not emerge from the disvalue of being of human life as a necessity, but merely as possibility: each one of us will have to decide whether to continue or not struggling against the disvalue of being).

13. Pain, boredom and moral disqualification are permanent and structural motives for abstaining of procreating and for suicide, independent from ontic motivations.

14. Summarizing: according to affirmative ethics, human life has an intrinsic positive value; procreation, even if sometimes irresponsible, is in general sublime; and suicide, even sometimes comprehensible is, in general, abominable. According to negative ethics, on the contrary, life has a structural negative value; procreation is, therefore, always irresponsible; and suicide can be not just morally justifiable, but an act with more chances than many others of being a moral act.

All of the foregoing assumes that a person has an interest in ethical behavior. Lots of things can be one's driving motivation in life, and ethics is just one of them. But if you are the type of person who takes ethics seriously, these are the conclusions that would seem to follow from what Cabrera is calling a "natural ontology" here, a sober reflection on the realities of life.

 

[PyramidHead]

I would re-iterate that I don't think the OP is wrong per se, just not universally true. If someone interprets life that way it's just as valid as someone not interpreting it that way.

When you tie this back to the main theme of anti-natalism I think it's important to keep this in mind. Child-rearing is natural for a lot of people for the very reason that life holds no negative connotations to them. To many not having children would seem like an odd, and strange idea, and I think they'd raise an eyebrow at someone suggesting that what they were doing is immoral because life is inherently bad.

Could you not say that about any moral claim?

 

[rousseau]

I would re-iterate that I don't think the OP is wrong per se, just not universally true. If someone interprets life that way it's just as valid as someone not interpreting it that way.

When you tie this back to the main theme of anti-natalism I think it's important to keep this in mind. Child-rearing is natural for a lot of people for the very reason that life holds no negative connotations to them. To many not having children would seem like an odd, and strange idea, and I think they'd raise an eyebrow at someone suggesting that what they were doing is immoral because life is inherently bad.

Could you not say that about any moral claim?

I would agree with this statement, that morality is universally subjective and contextual.

 

[PyramidHead]

I would re-iterate that I don't think the OP is wrong per se, just not universally true. If someone interprets life that way it's just as valid as someone not interpreting it that way.

When you tie this back to the main theme of anti-natalism I think it's important to keep this in mind. Child-rearing is natural for a lot of people for the very reason that life holds no negative connotations to them. To many not having children would seem like an odd, and strange idea, and I think they'd raise an eyebrow at someone suggesting that what they were doing is immoral because life is inherently bad.

Could you not say that about any moral claim?

I would agree with this statement, that morality is universally subjective and contextual.

Okay. So, there is no specific problem with the ideas being presented that other ethical claims lack, the problem is a general one that affects all ethical ideas equally.

I actually agree. The whole basis of this line of thinking is a big if-then statement. If you are concerned about suffering and its minimization, and want to respect the interests of others, not to manipulate them or force them into a desperate situation, these are some implications you may not have been aware of. But not everyone will adopt that motivation at all times, or at any time, in their lives. What I'm after is consistency. Because of the natural structure of conscious life, by just a bare and unassuming tally of its constraints independent of its contents, I agree with Mr. Cabrera that the enterprise of living in the world can never be done in a dignified, morally upstanding way... assuming the usual conceptions of dignity and moral worth, of course. It is always possible to construct a new system of values that does away with anything incompatible with the perpetuation of life, and no way to show that one value system is better than another without appealing to a third. If someone has a set of values that is different in this way, I can't say they are wrong. It's only when someone claims to hold the usual ethical considerations, and fails to apply them to the questions about life itself (as if life were just an inevitable and eternal fact that we have no power over), that I would say they are being disingenuous at least and irresponsible at worst.

 

[ruby sparks]

After all, we cause more damage staying than we do leaving. (In every way, suicide does not emerge from the disvalue of being of human life as a necessity, but merely as possibility: each one of us will have to decide whether to continue or not struggling against the disvalue of being).

Ok so the position seems to lead all the way to saying that morally, people should commit suicide and/or not procreate, and here it seems to pull back from that (internally logical) conclusion. I am not sure why (using the preceding argument, which appears to be clear about establishing negative value, as in the bolded part).

 

[PyramidHead]

After all, we cause more damage staying than we do leaving. (In every way, suicide does not emerge from the disvalue of being of human life as a necessity, but merely as possibility: each one of us will have to decide whether to continue or not struggling against the disvalue of being).

Ok so the position seems to lead all the way to saying that morally, people should commit suicide and/or not procreate, and here it seems to pull back from that (internally logical) conclusion. I am not sure why (using the preceding argument, which appears to be clear about establishing negative value, as in the bolded part).

The bolded part you quoted was an offhand remark that isn't really consistent with the rest of his ideas. Honestly, I'm not sure why he made that comment. He has gone into serious depth elsewhere about morally justified suicides, and is clear that it is only those that are committed in order to remove oneself from the possibility of committing a greater moral hazard (or to relieve intense pain that makes it impossible for you to morally consider the interests of others). He grants that, indeed, suicide can be a very damaging act to those around you, but it is not an especially immoral behavior because all acts, eventually, damage those around you to some extent.