I should mention, I haven't read your larger article for antinatalism so if you respond to any of this elsewhere I apologize!
Re your first response: I don't see why most people's reflection on whether or not they retroactively consent to their birth is poorly informed or irrational. Surely, if anyone is well positioned to evaluate if they consent to their birth, it is the person in question. It also just strikes me as quite implausible that most people are irrational when evaluating their own life, or at least if they are, they must also be deeply irrational about a wide array of other matters.
Re your second point: It's not clear to me why these 'biases' should be disqualifying. My tendency to consent to the hairdresser I pay cutting my hair is heavily influenced by the societal norms I find myself in, but that doesn't undermine my ability to consent to the activity. In other words, the fact that societal norms incline me towards a particular activity doesn't mean I cannot meaningfully consent to that activity.
Re your final point: Firstly I think it requires further empirical evidence that most anti-natalists don't retroactively consent to their own creation. Also, no offence meant, but the napkin math in the reddit post you link surely does not seem like strong enough evidence to conclude such a large number of anti natalists exist. For one thing it doesn't adjust for duplicate accounts, or people who were on the subreddit and left, etc. I think your case is much stronger from suicides, and I agree it's at least quite plausible they would not retroactively consent. That said, moreso than the average person it seems quite plausible that the suicidal person's judgements about retroactive consent will be less reliable than the typical person's. If someone is suicidal they are plausibly in a highly erratic mental state, or suffering from various neurological conditions which could impair their judgement. I think it would take quite a bit of work to section off the 'calm and reflective' suicidal individuals and figure out what their judgements would be. My guess is that they would represent a much smaller portion of suicidal individuals, and will undercut the case from suicidality substantially.
About the first resposne : I am not saying that most people's reflections on the matter are ill informed or irrational, I'm saying that most people don't reflect about this at all, so their tacit consent on the matter is not really informed nor rational. We are not even at the point of evaluating their reflection.
About the second response : I'm not claiming otherwise. Just that a societal norm strongly inclining us towards a certain moral judgment should at least give us some reasons to take with caution such a moral judgmgent, if it happens to be in accordance with the societal norm. About the hairdressing case, I think the analogy is less interesting because hairdressing norms are plausibly nothing else than societal norms, while moral norms are plausibly something else than societal norms.
About the final point : I agree that further empirical evidences would be better to establish that most antinatalists don't consent to their creation, but I think that in this case, reasoning is enough to establish a decent likelihood of the claim. Antinatalists consider procreation to be generally immoral, so probably including their own as well. And generally speaking, people would not consent to x if they consider x to be immoral. I am not claiming the reddit post constitutes strong evidence for the 36'000'000 figure, it's more to be taken as an important indicator. I generally agree with your critique of the suicidal people, it's also more to be taken as an important consideration.
I should mention, I haven't read your larger article for antinatalism so if you respond to any of this elsewhere I apologize!
Re your first response: I don't see why most people's reflection on whether or not they retroactively consent to their birth is poorly informed or irrational. Surely, if anyone is well positioned to evaluate if they consent to their birth, it is the person in question. It also just strikes me as quite implausible that most people are irrational when evaluating their own life, or at least if they are, they must also be deeply irrational about a wide array of other matters.
Re your second point: It's not clear to me why these 'biases' should be disqualifying. My tendency to consent to the hairdresser I pay cutting my hair is heavily influenced by the societal norms I find myself in, but that doesn't undermine my ability to consent to the activity. In other words, the fact that societal norms incline me towards a particular activity doesn't mean I cannot meaningfully consent to that activity.
Re your final point: Firstly I think it requires further empirical evidence that most anti-natalists don't retroactively consent to their own creation. Also, no offence meant, but the napkin math in the reddit post you link surely does not seem like strong enough evidence to conclude such a large number of anti natalists exist. For one thing it doesn't adjust for duplicate accounts, or people who were on the subreddit and left, etc. I think your case is much stronger from suicides, and I agree it's at least quite plausible they would not retroactively consent. That said, moreso than the average person it seems quite plausible that the suicidal person's judgements about retroactive consent will be less reliable than the typical person's. If someone is suicidal they are plausibly in a highly erratic mental state, or suffering from various neurological conditions which could impair their judgement. I think it would take quite a bit of work to section off the 'calm and reflective' suicidal individuals and figure out what their judgements would be. My guess is that they would represent a much smaller portion of suicidal individuals, and will undercut the case from suicidality substantially.
Hi, Thanks for your comment.
About the first resposne : I am not saying that most people's reflections on the matter are ill informed or irrational, I'm saying that most people don't reflect about this at all, so their tacit consent on the matter is not really informed nor rational. We are not even at the point of evaluating their reflection.
About the second response : I'm not claiming otherwise. Just that a societal norm strongly inclining us towards a certain moral judgment should at least give us some reasons to take with caution such a moral judgmgent, if it happens to be in accordance with the societal norm. About the hairdressing case, I think the analogy is less interesting because hairdressing norms are plausibly nothing else than societal norms, while moral norms are plausibly something else than societal norms.
About the final point : I agree that further empirical evidences would be better to establish that most antinatalists don't consent to their creation, but I think that in this case, reasoning is enough to establish a decent likelihood of the claim. Antinatalists consider procreation to be generally immoral, so probably including their own as well. And generally speaking, people would not consent to x if they consider x to be immoral. I am not claiming the reddit post constitutes strong evidence for the 36'000'000 figure, it's more to be taken as an important indicator. I generally agree with your critique of the suicidal people, it's also more to be taken as an important consideration.