Thought Experiments

Theme park analogy (from this paper): Imagine if you had a ticket for an amusement park that you had to give to a stranger who would be forced to go if you gave it to them and could not consent beforehand. While this might not seem like a bad thing, the stranger would also have to go through “‘must play’ facilities” that are not fun. Since the stranger cannot consent to that offer and may not even enjoy it, it is not ethical to give it to them the ticket. 

• My notes:

  • I would take it one step farther. A person who is born will want to have fun to maximize enjoyment and pleasure and may want to go to a theme park. A person who is not born has no wellbeing whatsoever, and therefore has no desires for fun or pleasure. Due to this, not only is the person who is not born unable to consent but also has no desire to go to the theme park under any circumstance as they have no desires to experience fun in the first place.

  • The writer of the paper compared the “bad” parts of life to the “must-play facilities,” which are temporary and seem to be a mild inconvenience. However, this is not reflective of the extent of suffering for many, such as permanent conditions that prolong suffering for long periods of time (or even an entire lifetime) or intense suffering that leads to long-lasting damage and psychological harm.

  • “There might be some negative effects on yourself if you don't give the ticket out perhaps because you really want to give the stranger a really nice tour in the theme park or you can enjoy the company of the stranger, even though you clearly know that the stranger has no interest in going to the theme park.”

    • This is a selfish consideration as someone else will suffer for your own benefit.

 

Heritable disease (Credit to u/Elegant_Perspective): Say you and your spouse have a baby who has Down Syndrome. Say you're both around 40, so the odds of having another baby with down syndrome are relatively high.

 

Would you have another baby? Anyone who gives it thought would say "well, we're not doing it. It's better for the baby to not be born because if it did, it would suffer from down syndrome." I mean, you'd have a moral obligation to not bring a child, right? Perhaps even your doctor would say so.

 

Or would you say "well, there's no one to experience the non-down-syndrome life, so I have no moral obligation to not bring a child, and I can procreate as much as I want, and it's not on me if they get down syndrome"?

 

So if you knew there's a high chance the baby will suffer from a genetic disorder, you'd probably never have the baby, right?

 

Doesn't it prove that prevention of suffering is good even if there's nobody to experience that good?

 

At least you would know that you prevented a life from potential down syndrome, right?

 

• Useful to handle the non-identity problem (Counterargument 8)

 

Nonexistence (Credit to u/Elegant_Perspective): Imagine if there was life on Mars, they would all be happy and joyous throughout their lives.

 

But there's no life on Mars. What do you feel about this? Nothing. "They don't exist, so they don't miss the joy."

 

Now imagine if there was life on Mars, it would be total hell. Creatures would rape, kill, and eat each other just to barely survive. Total chaos and continuous suffering.

 

But there's no life on Mars. What do you feel about this? A slight relief, thanks to your compassion. "Well, it's good that they don't exist. Cause if they did, they'd only suffer."

 

There you have it. Absence of pain is good regardless of whether or not there's someone to experience that absence.

 

And absence of joy doesn't matter if there's no one to experience the lack.

 

A exists: A experiences joy (+) A experiences pain (-)

 

A does not exist: A does not experience joy (0) A does not experience pain (+)

 

• Useful to handle the non-identity problem (Counterargument 8)

 

Harm vs. Pleasure (Credit to u/Elegant_Perspective): Would you be willing to suffer the absolute worst of pain for 15 minutes if you were guaranteed the most sublime pleasures of life for 60 minutes afterward?

 

The most disgusting and painful suffering for 15 minutes >>> the most sublime joy of life for 60 minutes.

 

And if you think the above isn't true. Bring the pleasure down to 15 minutes (you know, make it equal), and let me know what you think.

 

• Useful to address pleasure over pain argument (Counterargument 2)

 

Russian Roulette: Imagine if I had a revolver that had some of the chambers loaded. The number of chambers depends on the conditions that a child of yours will be born into, such as the risk of disease, poverty, risk of discrimination, etc. The worse those conditions are, the more chambers are loaded. Would you like that revolver to be fired at you? 

 

If not, why do you want to fire that revolver at your potential child in the hopes that they might have a good life despite all of the factors that might worsen it? 

 

If so, wouldn’t you rather stop the revolver from firing at all? In that case, why would you produce a child that will have the revolver fired at them when they never consented to it nor desired it in the first place?

 

• Useful to explain risk argument (Argument B)

 

The Mere Addition Paradox/The Repugnant Conclusion: Imagine if there was a group of people who are happy. More people are born who are less happy but still satisfied with life. If we took away just a bit of the resources from the happiest part of the group and gave it to the less happy people, we would raise their happiness by a large amount and make the entire group equally happy. However, if we take the average happiness of the group now, it is lower than that of the group originally because the limited resources had to be distributed among a larger population. If these steps are repeated over and over, the eventual result will be a massive population with the minimum level of average happiness; this would be a population in which every member is leading a life barely worth living. This is the repugnant conclusion.

 

• Useful to explain Argument E

 

The Risky Button (Credit to u/YouWontFindThisOne): Would it be okay for me to push a button that might make someone else's life significantly better or significantly worse without their consent? Even if there was a 95 percent chance of a good result and a 5 percent for a bad result, it would still be unethical because you are gambling with the wellbeing of another person without consent. 

• Useful to explain Argument B

 

Rape Comparison: Would it be ethical to rape someone if they are in a coma and can’t consent? If not, why is it ethical to give birth to someone if they can’t consent either? In both cases, you could argue that there is a chance they might enjoy it (since sex is generally considered enjoyable), but that does not make it ethical because consent was never established.

• Useful to explain Argument B

 

Slavery Comparison: Usually, slavery is defined as not allowing someone to do something that they would like to do or forcing someone to do what you desire. Similarly, before birth, it is impossible to ask for consent to birth, but the parent decides to do it anyway. Even if your child decides for themself that they would not like to live, they are not able to easily commit suicide. Except in a handful of countries that have relatively low populations, it is illegal to commit suicide and highly stigmatized. As a result, they are essentially like slaves as they are forced to work within society through a job and other obligations despite never consenting to it and having no way to escape.

 

Wealthy/Unlucky Case (Shiffrin): Wealthy is a very rich individual. One day he decides to share some of his wealth with his neighbours, who live on a nearby island. They are in no need of extra money. Wealthy gets into his plane with a hundred cubes of gold bullion. His intention is to drop these gold cubes from the sky. He goes about doing this, taking care not to hit anyone. He is aware that his actions could maim, or even kill, but he has no other means of distributing his wealth. Most of the recipients of gold cubes are surprised but happy to receive their unexpected gifts. One person, Unlucky, does in fact get hit, and the impact breaks his arm. Wealthy might have delivered an all-things-considered benefit to Unlucky, but in doing so he placed Unlucky at great risk where no such risk previously existed, and indeed inflicted a serious injury upon Unlucky. Similarly, even when parents create persons who come to view their lives to be all-things-considered beneficial, parents impose (the risk of) potentially serious harms upon their offspring: Even if [Wealthy] took the greatest care, he imposed risk of harm and injury on another without consent and without the justification that it was necessary to avoid a more substantial harm. Everyday procreation may be described in similar terms. Shiffrin is appealing to the following sort of principle: The Shiffrin-esque principle of permissible harm where it is permissible for one to knowingly harm unconsenting patient A to a non-trivial degree if, and only if, the following conditions are met: a) one imposes the harm with the reasonable expectation of thereby alleviating or saving patient A from a pre-existing or anticipated harm; and b) the imposed harm is a lesser harm than the harm one aims to alleviate.

• Response to DeGrazia’s criticism: DeGrazia makes an interesting distinction between imposing harm upon others, and merely exposing them to harm. Procreation, he argues, does not usually impose harms upon children; rather, it merely exposes children to harm, along with the potential for great benefits. However, a lack of hypothetical consent is still a problem when aiming to argue that certain harmful acts are permissible—regardless of whether the harm comes about through imposition or (simply) exposure.

 

Broken Arm Analogy: Giving birth to someone and providing them with a good life only fulfills a demand that you created. Since that person would not have cared about experiencing pleasure if they had never been born, they would have had no desire for a good life if they never existed. By being born, that desire for pleasure was created. As a result, providing them a good life is essentially solving an issue that would not have existed if the person had never been born. It is similar to breaking someone’s arm, fixing it, and calling yourself a hero for correcting a problem you caused. Being born creates the “problem,” or the desire to avoid pain/experience pleasure. Since it is possible for things to go wrong, parents are creating a problem that could have been avoided by not procreating. There is no guarantee that things will go well or poorly. The main logic is that it’s unethical to take that risk for someone else. Parents can try as hard as they can to make good decisions and take personal responsibility, but they can’t always avoid the difficulties of life.

 

Additionally, it is also possible they are unable to fix the arm after they break it in the same way parents can try to give their child a good life after creating them but could fail to do so due to factors outside of their control. As a result, they created a need to experience pleasure by reproducing but are unable to fulfill it.

 

Forced Hobby Comparison: A nonexistent person doesn’t care if they are alive or not, similar to how a person may not care about a hobby you have. Giving birth to them and imposing the desire for pleasurable experiences onto them would be like forcing someone to enjoy your hobby even if they have no interest in it and never got a chance to reject the offer. In this analogy, the only way to escape the hobby is through suicide, which is very difficult to do and not a justification (see Counterargument 1).

 

Kidnapping Analogy: Giving birth and justifying it by saying the child could simply commit suicide if they do not enjoy their life is like saying it is justified to kidnap someone if you give them the option to commit suicide as well since both involve forcing someone to experience something without consent and using the same “escape” as an excuse.

 

Climate change/inherited problem analogy: If you feel that a person’s consent and wellbeing do not matter until after they are born, do you think it was justified for older people to refuse to take action on climate change when they were young because the people who would suffer the consequences weren't born yet? They didn't exist at the time, so, by this logic, it wouldn’t have mattered because the people affected did not exist yet. However, the problem would ultimately be passed down to them in the future. Through this, it is clear that we should consider how our actions will affect people who are not alive yet as they will ultimately face the consequences of what we do. Similarly, we should extend the same consideration to people who have not been born yet when considering whether or not it is ethical to do so. 

 

Line of Acceptable Risk: If all children were guaranteed to face excruciating suffering for their entire lives once they are born, would it still be acceptable to have children? What if that risk was only 90%? Or 80%? Would it be acceptable to have children if climate change was guaranteed to ravage the world or if you live in an impoverished, war-torn country? At what point would the risk of extreme suffering be acceptable? Since the children are the ones facing the consequences, it shouldn’t be up to us to decide as it is their lives we are gambling with. Therefore, reproduction is unethical since the children have a chance of suffering significantly that we cannot risk without their consent.

 

Abuse Analogy: Believing someone who is suffering could simply overcome it and live happily nonetheless due to the positive moments in life would be similar to believing someone should stay in an abusive relationship because there may also be happy moments in that relationship between the abusive episodes. This would be illogical as the positive moments would not make up for the abuse done as there should be no abuse at all. Similarly, the positive moments of life do not make up for the harm done as it never should have been up to the parents to create a situation where their children would endure harm in the first place.

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Fallout Shelter Analogy: Imagine you’re stuck in a fallout shelter with several other people after a nuclear war. Luckily there is enough food and water for everyone. But then, a couple decides to have several children, so now everyone receives smaller meals and less water to feed them. Why should everyone else have to accept that just because the couple wanted children?

 

Similarly, why should everyone else have to accept living a lower quality of life because some people want to have more children? There are only so many resources to go around after all. Creating more people means fewer resources can go towards the people who are already alive.