(Brief table of contents for my post.)
Sure, it isn't contradictory and it's fine to want to have a happy life like others do
but that still doesn't justify as to why they should create a new life[,] as then they are risking their child to potentially have the same pains about life as they do.
But don't such irreparable pains in life often have determinate causes?
For example, let us say someone is born to abusive parents and suffers PTSD due to said abuse. That is indeed a significant pain of life, a risk taken indeed that came from existing in the first place: but it had a
cause, a preventable one, at that.
What I mean to say is this. A parent who has suffered traumatic issues in life, has a better chance of knowing what caused them. And if they know what caused them, if they know how this problem happened; then they have a massively increased capacity to be able to prevent such problems afflicting their child. A parental abuse survivor could go on to learn healthy parenting methods to ensure that
their child at least won't suffer parental abuse, and grow up free of parental trauma, and nourished by the parental support they wish they could've had for themselves.
Also, just the fact that other people seem to be happy doesn't guarantee that their child would be the same
I agree that other people being happy does not guarantee happiness for the child; just as it does guarantee happiness for ourselves.
So I affirm your reasoning. But I present an inverse of your model. What if other people being miserable or irreparably dissatisified with life, doesn't guarantee that their child will [surely] be barred from an acceptable life?
I think the possibility of positive results should be taken into account alongside presences of negative results, and considered accordingly. I personally posit that a new child, under a parent who has experienced suffering firsthand and is painfully aware of the causes yet unable to turn back time, has at least some capacity to turn things for the better for their kid, a new child, who most probably may not be born with damning traumas, and may easily possess a fair chance at life; perhaps an even fairer chance compared to other parents who have no experience of such suffering & their true causes & mechanics.
and, even if there is a guarantee that their child would be happy, it's still pointless to give birth to them since they aren't losing out on anything by not having been born.
I think that even if you calculate life as a net negative, that even
if it is a net negative; that there are still certain [positive] things that are good to experience.
I do think that they lose out on something by being born; namely, certain positive experiences in life, like love & friendship, resonance & awe of all art forms (music, poetry, film, etc), fascination & learning, amongst other things.
I personally posit that the decision of whether life is worth it, is something that
must be placed in the power of the subject, and only the subject, to decide for themselves.
One could argue that the prospect of whether life is worth living, is a
subjective one. That worth and valid reasons themselves, are subjective, and hence require a conscious agent to experience them first-hand to create a valid, lucid choice in the end.
I will attempt to convey this idea through a parable.
Let us say we have a—theoretical—suicidal child, of two parents. Our subject here decides to explain their ideas to their two parents. Parent 1 is supportive of their ideas, and affirms that they have a right to end their life, and that their life is
not worth living, given their current circumstance. (Maybe they have certain neurological issues that induce significant confusion & pain.) But Parent 2 on the other hand, civilly disagrees with the subject, and says that their life
is worth living; arguing that that even if the
subject doesn't see any reasons to live, that there are unseen reasons that are valid in their own right.
Parent 1 here is merely affirmng the idea that our subject came to on their own terms, the conclusion their used their
own reasoning and experience to come to. So I find little complexity in the mere agreement [of this parent] here.
Parent 2's assertion here is more contentious. There is a certain piece of wording here I used, that I want to highlight.
and says their life is worth living
Wait a minute.
Their life? But... you aren't living
their life. You're living your
own life: How can you accurately depict, let alone understand, another one's life; to a degree as instrumental & as serious, on a matter of life and death, of everything and nothing?
To me, this very notion, that the child will think, act, and decide the same way that you will—on the matter of life's worth—is, a decision that may be possibly influenced by the psychologist's fallacy.
The roots of much pseudopsychology seem to be in what are termed "the psychologist's
fallacy" and "
folk psychology." The psychologist's fallacy refers to the tendency for people, when judging another's state of mind, to assume that the other person must have similar knowledge or experience. It was first defined by William James thusly:
| The great snare of the psychologist is the confusion of his own standpoint with that of the mental fact about which he is making his report. I shall hereafter call this the "psychologist's fallacy" par excellence.[23] |
A major aspect of folk psychology is a mental simulation, in which we attempt to understand the mental states and processes of others by imagining ourselves in their place. This c
an easily combine with the psychologist's fallacy to produce a faulty interpretation of another person's behavior. Surely, everyone knows the things you do, thinks the way you do, and so would act the way you do in any given situation!
—
§The psychologist's fallacy and folk psychology: from the RationalWiki article titled
Pseudopsychology.*
*(Note: I do not mean to accuse you anywhere of pseudoscience; it's just that the article that talks about folk psychology happens to mention this fallacy.
I merely differ with you on reasoning, and consider our differing a respectful one.)
I do not mean to say anyone must be forced to live no matter the circumstance. For example, I wouldn't say a soldier bleeding out from fatal wounds must be forced to hang in till the last second—certainly not, I would say they have the right to a
coup de grâce from themselves or a fellow soldier in such a case & time.
But regardless, that is a
decision to be made; that they have the right to, because they understand the nature of their own experience, as well as the nature of their own situation.
I do recognize that such an argument may be forwarded by proponents of abortion—of which I am affirmatively pro-choice, to that extent—that "the fetus can't object to the abortion, therefore abortion is forced upon the fetus, therefore taking away the right of the fetus to choose to be born, hence immoral."
But I consider abortion a very different situation. The right of the mother's choice over her own body comes into play as well. This notion of "fetus rights" can end up overriding a woman's right over her own body in pro-life logic, an idea I find particularly abhorrent.
The actual act of giving birth to a child, can severely disparage a woman's life & autonomy. She may be unable to finish college (or even high school if young enough), and can easily lose the ability to maintain a full-time job and be set back considerably life's dreams and passions; because caring for a child is
that intensive. Maybe her workplace isn't willing to let her be away from work for many months [to care for the newborn]. Maybe she
needs money from her job to live. Maybe she loves having her own friends & pursuits to enjoy in her own time; time that is no longer there for her with a newborn in the picture.
So a woman has the right to choose. She has the right to choose, over the fetus, because her autonomy & life, that currently exists, is at greater stake & is of more value than anything the non-existant human theoretically wants.
And it's also important to note that a large number of Christians who today claim the "Pro-Life" label are only actually against abortion when it comes to other people's abortions,
thinking that the abortions they themselves have had are somehow okay, but that everyone else's abortions are wrong and should be illegal, basically telling us that they believe the only moral abortions are the abortions they have,
as well as that a large reason they're fighting against abortion is actually because they want to punish other women for enjoying sex, and to ensure that those women suffer long-lasting consequences for their actions (they'll argue that it's actually because they think abortion is immoral and that they believe in "the sanctity of life,"
but their hypocrisy, along with the way they treat those who have been born — especially in the United States, where religious conservatives only care about the unborn until they are born, after which it's up to those who are born to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, as far as they're concerned — reveals the real truth about them to the rest of us: that they don't actually believe in "the sanctity of life," or in ethical practices at all, for that matter).
—Drew Costen,
A few thoughts on abortion, page 10*
*Note, I'm no Christian myself, I just find his progressive religious view here—in defense of pro-choice—very well worded here.
The thing is, though, that people who are ardently pro-choice when it comes to abortion (like me)—while they understand that there is a time and place where forcing a birth becomes immoral and where abortion becomes the best choice possible, to avert further ruinage & minimize harm; also affirm that there too, is a time and place for birth:
Where a well-prepared family who've practiced volumes of consideration, preparation, education and practice for what raising a kid actually entails,and how it will actually effect their life—through adequate & diligent process, are able to avoid the severe harms that impromptu birth induces, and help preserve the quality of live for themselves.
That is fundamentally what the entire issue of pro-choice is about, preserving quality of life, for the woman, for her family, for not just some theoretical fetus, but shielding from the real, undeniable, effects that such a birth has on people's lives.
The justifications supporting the pro-choice conclusion & perspective are as I've mentioned; cogent, clear, unavoidable risks that come about as a direct result of birth. But addressal of such real risks themselves, does not seek to negate the (also possible) benefits that a secure family can enjoy from raising a child through life. No, this doesn't always happen, but it
can happen if enough preparation is done; preparation which is entirely possible to perform, seeking to eliminate preventable risks. Yes, some people are born fucked; but that happens a minority of the time, not all the time. Most babies are born healthy, and I'm willing to wager most things that fuck up people's lives come from circumstance and nurture, less so nature. Bad parenting, low-quality pedagogy & schooling growing up, indoctrination of irrational & fragile values [that easily lead to harm & problems], etc.
I think it's simply too inaccurate to categorize all unborn children as incorrigably damned, and hence unworthy of considering. A life already fucked may not carry the possibility for a perfect renaissance, but the blank slate of a new child carries more possibility, the possibility to avoid mistakes already made before in previous lives [of parents], the possibility to use science & the best understanding we have of psychology & pedagogy to address any significant neurological conditions
before they take away opportunities for the kid (meds for clinical depression, therapy/counselling for autism, etc).
I think that while in certain cases, you can justify suicide on the grounds that a person possesses a certain right to their autonomy & choice to make a decision of such gravity for their life—an "inalienable right", if you will—that to take this outcome, which I regard as a case that many people do not end up being unfixably trapped into (albeit I hastily acknowledge some DO end up being unfixably trapped into such situations), and generalize this one possibility to all possible possibilities for a child, and regard any and all chances—for bad
and for good—they may encounter as a result of their existence, as to be universally and categorically dismissed, seems to be, an over-generalization, and a flawed use of logic.
