# Sam Harris - Is Life Actually Worth Living? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2hyj-8fw10 Translation: zh-CN [00:19] welcome to the waking up podcast 欢迎收听清醒播客 [00:21] this is sam harris 我是萨姆·哈里斯 [00:24] today i'm speaking with david benitar 今天我与大卫·贝尼塔尔对话 [00:26] david is a professor of philosophy at the university of cape town in south africa 大卫是南非开普敦大学的哲学教授 [00:31] he's the author of a few books better never to have been 他是几本书的作者，其中一本名为《最好从未存在过》 [00:35] the harm of coming into existence and most recently the human predicament 《存在的危害》以及最近的《人类困境》 [00:39] a candid guide to life's biggest questions 一本坦诚指导人生最大问题的指南 [00:43] and he's a philosopher who many of you have wanted me to speak with 他是一位哲学家，你们中的许多人都希望我与他交谈 [00:47] i've been getting emails and tweets about him for quite some time 我收到关于他的电子邮件和推文已经有一段时间了 [00:51] he is perhaps the most prominent exponent of a philosophy called anti-natalism 他也许是“反生育主义”这一哲学最杰出的代表 [00:55] and you will hear much more about that in today's episode 在今天的节目中，你将听到更多关于这方面的内容 [01:00] the question for 问题是 [01:02] David really is whether or not existence is worth the trouble and he answers that question with an emphatic no and this makes for an interesting conversation. 大卫确实是在于生存是否值得，他以一个斩钉截铁的“不”回答了这个问题，这使得一场有趣的对话。 [01:13] As you'll hear, there are a couple of places where intuitions diverge and I think you just have to pick which intuition you find most compelling there. 正如你将听到的，有一些地方直觉会分歧，我认为你只需要选择你觉得最引人注目的直觉。 [01:21] But we talk about many interesting things. 但我们谈论了许多有趣的事情。 [01:22] We talk about the asymmetry between the good and bad things in life, the ethics of existential risk, the difference between starting and continuing a life. 我们谈论了生活中好与坏事物之间的不对称性，存在风险的伦理，开始和继续生活的区别。 [01:34] He sees those as very different. 他认为那些非常不同。 [01:36] Our built-in bias towards existence and how that may confuse us. 我们固有的偏向存在的倾向以及这可能如何混淆我们。 [01:39] The relationship between anti-natalism and another position called pro-mortalism. 反出生主义与另一种称为“促死亡主义”的立场之间的关系。 [01:47] The idea that it would be a good thing if we all died in our sleep tonight. 这个想法是，如果我们今晚都在睡梦中死去，那将是一件好事。 [01:51] I talked for a few minutes about my notion of the moral landscape. 我花了几分钟谈论了我对道德景观的看法。 [01:55] And we also talk about the limits and paradoxes of introspection, how viewing your life in a certain way. 我们还谈论了内省的局限性和悖论，以及如何以某种方式看待你的生活。 [02:03] can actually change what there is to notice about your life. 可以真正改变你生活中值得注意的事情。 [02:07] and there are many other topics here. 这里还有许多其他话题。 [02:09] population ethics is a very rich conversation for those of you who like moral philosophy. 人口伦理学对于喜欢道德哲学的各位来说，是一个非常丰富的对话。 [02:15] and it got me to realize at least one thing that resolves for me at least one of the troubling paradoxes in derrick parfit's philosophy. 这让我至少意识到了一件事，它为我解决了德里克·帕菲特哲学中至少一个令人困扰的悖论。 [02:24] so i founded a very valuable conversation. 所以我建立了一个非常有价值的对话。 [02:27] and i hope you do as well and now i bring you david benatar. 我希望你们也是如此，现在我为大家带来大卫·贝纳塔尔。 [02:36] i am here with david benatar. 我和大卫·贝纳塔尔在一起。 [02:37] david thanks for coming on the podcast. 大卫，谢谢你来参加播客。 [02:39] thank you nice to be with you. 谢谢你，很高兴和你在一起。 [02:42] so i've been hearing about you for at least a year. 我听说你至少有一年了。 [02:43] um i plead unfamiliarity with your your books but people have been emailing me about you. 嗯，我不得不说我对你的书不熟悉，但人们一直在给我发邮件谈论你。 [02:50] i think they have read some of your articles and and some undoubtedly have read your books. 我想他们读过你的一些文章，当然也有人读过你的书。 [02:58] but you have been laying out a philosophy that is quite novel and quite pessimistic. 但你一直在阐述一种相当新颖且相当悲观的哲学。 [03:04] and quite interesting it really strikes to the very core of the question is life worth living and your answer to that is a resounding no at least for those who don't yet exist. 而且很有趣，它确实触及了问题的核心：生命是否值得活？而你的回答是响亮的否定，至少对于那些还不存在的人来说是这样。 [03:19] and no doubt most of what is interesting in moral philosophy can be brought to bear on this question. 毫无疑问，道德哲学中大部分有趣的内容都可以用来探讨这个问题。 [03:26] before we we dive into your philosophy give us just a kind of a potted history of your of what you've been doing intellectually and the kinds of questions you've you focused on. 在我们深入探讨你的哲学之前，请给我们简要介绍一下你在这方面的学术历程，以及你专注于哪些问题。 [03:36] well this is one question that i've sort of revisited on multiple occasions and also examined issues related to it. 嗯，这是我多次重新审视过的一个问题，也研究过与之相关的问题。 [03:46] i suppose my broad interests are in moral philosophy more specifically in practical ethical questions. 我想我的广泛兴趣在于道德哲学，更具体地说，在于实践伦理问题。 [03:54] but often when i look at the practical ethical questions i'm interested in the theoretical issues that lie behind them. 但很多时候，当我审视实践伦理问题时，我更关注它们背后的理论问题。 [04:00] and i suppose in this area of procreative ethics those two come together quite well. 我想在生殖伦理这个领域，这两者结合得相当好。 [04:05] But I have written about other topics as well. 但我同时也写过其他主题。 [04:07] Another book that I wrote is called The Second Sexism. 我写的另一本书叫做《第二性别主义》。 [04:09] Which is about discrimination against men and boys. 这本书是关于歧视男性和男孩的。 [04:15] And then I've written on a range of practical ethical questions. 然后我还写了一系列实际的伦理问题。 [04:18] And you're currently a professor of philosophy. 你目前是哲学教授。 [04:20] That's correct in Cape Town. 没错，在开普敦。 [04:23] So let's just jump in because this is this really is fascinating. 那么我们开始吧，因为这真的很吸引人。 [04:26] You describe your view as anti-natalism. 你将你的观点描述为反出生主义。 [04:29] Is that a coinage from you or or did that view exist before you started working in this area? 这是你创造的词，还是在你开始研究这个领域之前就存在这种观点？ [04:35] I've been asked that question and quite frankly I don't know the answer. 我被问过这个问题，坦白说我不知道答案。 [04:37] Whether I coined the term or whether I heard it somewhere. 是我创造了这个词，还是我在别处听说的。 [04:40] I've tried to do some sort of intellectual archaeology to find out whether I did hear it from somewhere else and I've been unsuccessful. 我试图做一些智力考古来找出我是否从别处听过，但我没有成功。 [04:50] But the idea itself I think dates back to much earlier times. 但我想这个想法本身可以追溯到更早的时期。 [04:54] One he was even in ancient times the idea that it would have been better never to have been born. 甚至在古代就有人提出过，从未出生过会更好。 [04:59] And a more more recent exponent of course was Arthur Schopenhauer. 当然，一个更近期的代表人物是叔本华。 [05:01] So these ideas have been around for a 所以这些想法已经存在了很久。 [05:06] long time and that doesn't surprise me. 很长时间了，这并不让我感到惊讶。 [05:08] yeah it's interesting there's a quite a convergence between your view and buddhism i'm sure someone must have pointed that out to you at some point. 是的，有趣的是，你的观点和佛教之间有相当大的交集，我敢肯定有人一定在某个时候向你指出过这一点。 [05:15] yes exactly they have. 是的，确实有。 [05:18] perhaps we'll touch on that because i have a long-standing interest in buddhism and and related practices like meditation. 也许我们会谈到这一点，因为我对佛教以及冥想等相关实践长期以来一直很感兴趣。 [05:25] so just lay out the argument for anti-natalism. 所以，请阐述一下反出生主义的论点。 [05:29] make make the case for us at the outset here. 请在开头为我们陈述一下。 [05:32] well perhaps i should clarify what the view is first so it's the view that we ought not to bring new people into existence. 嗯，也许我应该先澄清一下这个观点，那就是我们不应该让新人来到世上。 [05:39] but i think the view is broader that we ought not to bring new sentient beings into existence. 但我认为这个观点更广泛，即我们不应该让新的有感知能力的生命来到世上。 [05:42] right so it's not just the view that it's harmful to come into existence but a further view that it's also wrong to to bring beings into existence. 对，所以这不仅仅是来到世上是有害的观点，而是一个更进一步的观点，即让生命来到世上也是错误的。 [05:53] and i think there are a range of arguments for this position. 我认为有多种论点支持这一立场。 [05:56] some of them are characterized as philanthropic arguments. 其中一些被归类为慈善论点。 [06:00] and others i think are misanthropic arguments. 而另一些我认为是厌世论点。 [06:02] and here of course i'm restricting the scope to bringing human beings into existence although i 当然，在这里我将范围限制在让人类来到世上，尽管我 [06:07] I think that parallel points might be able to be made about about other sentient beings. 我认为关于其他有感知能力的生命也可以提出类似的观点。 [06:12] The original arguments that are advanced are the philanthropic ones and those really are concerned about the being that you'll bring into existence. 提出的最初论点是仁慈的论点，这些论点确实关心你将要带到世上的生命。 [06:20] And my view is not only that it's always a harm for that being, but that it's also a very serious harm. 我的观点不仅是这总是对那个生命有害，而且也是一个非常严重的伤害。 [06:26] And given the seriousness of that harm, I think that it's always going to be wrong to create a new being. 考虑到这种伤害的严重性，我认为创造一个新的生命总是错误的。 [06:32] More recently I've developed some misanthropic arguments. 最近我提出了一些厌世的论点。 [06:35] And those have to do with the harm that the being you bring into existence will do to others. 这些论点与你带到世上的生命将对他人造成的伤害有关。 [06:41] And by others I mean other human beings, but also other sentient beings on the planet. 我说的他人是指其他人类，也包括地球上其他有感知能力的生命。 [06:46] So those are two broad kinds of arguments and I although they once philanthropic and the other is misanthropic. 所以这是两种广泛的论点，一种是仁慈的，另一种是厌世的。 [06:52] I don't think that these two are incompatible with one another. 我不认为这两种观点是不相容的。 [06:55] So just to revisit a few of those utterances unless they blow by and their significance be lost on on some of the audience here. 所以，让我们回顾一下其中一些言论，以免它们被忽略而对这里的某些听众失去意义。 [07:02] So one of the consequences of your view is that it really is a a monstrous. 所以，你的观点的一个后果是，它确实是可怕的。 [07:09] crime to have children at a minimum it's a colossal act of negligence on the part of people who haven't really thought about these issues clearly enough and i mean it's really it's kind of analogous on your view to ushering souls into hell because existence is either that bad or there's a high enough probability that it will be that bad that it's just it's just irresponsible to consign people to the to the fate of of existing that's correct. 犯罪，至少有孩子是一种巨大的疏忽行为，这是那些没有真正充分考虑过这些问题的人的过失，我的意思是，这在你的观点看来，就像把灵魂引入地狱一样，因为存在要么就是那么糟糕，要么就有很高的可能性会那么糟糕，以至于就这样，就这样不负责任地把人们托付给存在的命运，这是正确的。 [07:41] of course hell comes in degrees so as bad as it is it can always be worse and so we need to be careful about that analogy of ushering somebody into hell but it's a kind of hell. 当然，地狱有不同的程度，所以无论它有多糟糕，总会变得更糟，所以我们需要小心关于把某人引入地狱的比喻，但这确实是一种地狱。 [07:51] i love this topic and i think this will be fun to to get into the details here and hear some more of your your specific arguments but what has been your experience promulgating this idea or set of ideas i can imagine the thesis provokes anger in some people that's for sure a lot of angry people. 我喜欢这个话题，我认为在这里深入细节并听到更多你具体的论点将会很有趣，但你在推广这个想法或这套想法的经历如何？我可以想象这个论点会激怒一些人，那肯定是真的，很多人都很生气。 [08:11] Fortunately not too many of those have made direct contact with me. 幸运的是，这些人中没有太多直接联系过我。 [08:15] But one does see a lot of hate mail of a certain kind and a lot of lots of a lot of hate comments on the web. 但在网上确实能看到很多某种类型的仇恨邮件，以及很多很多仇恨评论。 [08:23] But the people who've contacted me tend to be those who have been more sympathetic to my views. 但联系我的人往往是那些更同情我观点的人。 [08:29] And one very common kind of response I've received is from people who've had these sorts of thoughts and felt that they were entirely alone in the world. 我收到的一个非常普遍的回复来自那些有过这类想法，并觉得自己在这个世界上完全孤单的人。 [08:35] They thought that they were the only people who who thought this and they've drawn a measure of comfort from knowing that there are others who shared that idea. 他们认为自己是唯一有这种想法的人，而知道有其他人也有同样的想法，让他们感到一丝安慰。 [08:44] One distinction to make here is between pessimism of the sort that you're expressing and nihilism. 这里需要区分的是你所表达的那种悲观主义和虚无主义。 [08:49] Your your view really isn't nihilistic. 你的观点真的不是虚无主义的。 [08:52] Do you want to tease those apart? 你想把它们区分开吗？ [08:54] Yeah, you're absolutely right. 是的，你说得完全正确。 [08:56] Many people I think mischaracterize the position as a nihilistic position. 我认为很多人错误地将这个立场描述为虚无主义立场。 [09:00] And I I'm not a nihilist. 我不是虚无主义者。 [09:03] I think that suffering for example is bad and that's one of the reasons why I think it's wrong to bring new beings into existence because they're going to suffer and they're going to suffer pretty. 我认为例如痛苦是坏的，这也是我认为不应该让新的生命存在的原因之一，因为它们会遭受痛苦，而且会遭受相当大的痛苦。 [09:11] Unspeakably nihilism here would be that basically nothing matters, right? 这里令人难以置信的虚无主义是，基本上，什么都不重要，对吧？ [09:17] In in the scheme of things, good and bad are just things we make up. 在事情的安排中，好与坏只是我们虚构的东西。 [09:21] And the universe doesn't care about us. 宇宙并不关心我们。 [09:23] And therefore, it doesn't really matter if conscious minds get ground up in some inferno interminably. 因此，如果意识心灵在某种炼狱中无休止地被碾碎，那真的无关紧要。 [09:30] That's not your view at all. 这根本不是你的观点。 [09:32] You want to avoid the inferno and you want to avoid committing the moral wrong of consigning people to it. 你想避免炼狱，你想避免犯下将人们送入其中的道德错误。 [09:38] That's exactly right. 完全正确。 [09:41] Uh, look, I, I am a nihilist of some kind. 呃，看，我，我某种程度上是个虚无主义者。 [09:45] So if you ask me about whether our lives have cosmic meaning, I'm a nihilist about that. 所以，如果你问我我们的生命是否有宇宙意义，我对此持虚无主义态度。 [09:48] I don't think that they do. 我不认为它们有。 [09:50] But I just don't think that it follows from that that it's okay to inflict suffering on others. 但我只是不认为由此得出对他人施加痛苦是可以的。 [09:57] I can imagine that people also try to psychologize you. 我可以想象人们也会试图给你心理分析。 [10:01] They must think that this view is really not so much the product of a valid chain of reasoning, it's the product of 他们一定认为这种观点并非真正源于有效的推理链，而是源于 [10:13] a likely mood disorder are you depressed? 一种可能的 the mood disorder，你是抑郁的吗？ [10:17] is that a diagnosis you must get hurt at you? 这是你必须受伤的诊断吗？ [10:19] yeah there are lots of people who do exactly that they try to psychologize it. 是的，有很多人这样做，他们试图把它心理化。 [10:23] and i think that's exactly the wrong attitude to have. 而且我认为这正是错误的态度。 [10:26] i think one should look at the arguments, examine them on their merits and see whether they whether they stand. 我认为应该看看这些论点，根据它们的优点进行检查，看看它们是否站得住脚。 [10:31] but i guess that they're both things could be true. 但我猜它们都可能是真的。 [10:33] i mean i i find the arguments very interesting and and we will definitely get into those. 我的意思是，我觉得这些论点非常有趣，我们肯定会深入探讨。 [10:39] but i when i heard about you and your emphasis on this position, i did think that your just experience of the world moment to moment and that would include your mood and and you know everything else about you that can be brought to bear on experience must be coloring the arguments or it could be coloring your your sense of their veracity or or moral import. 但是，当我听说你以及你对这个立场的强调时，我确实认为你对世界的即时体验，包括你的情绪以及你知道的关于你的一切，都可以用来影响论点，或者它可能正在影响你对它们真实性或道德重要性的看法。 [11:06] and i i guess i'll tell you about an experience i had. 我想我会告诉你我的一次经历。 [11:09] and i'm just wondering if there's anything about it that could be relevant to your case so i i 我只是想知道它是否有任何可能与你的情况相关的地方，所以，我，我 [11:15] had a friend. 我有一个朋友。 [11:16] not a close friend but someone who i had met many many times. 不是一个亲密的朋友，但也是我见过很多很多次的人。 [11:19] and this was a person who would email me periodically who was suicidal. 这个人会定期给我发邮件，说他有自杀倾向。 [11:25] and he had been suicidal for quite some time. 他已经有自杀倾向很长一段时间了。 [11:29] at one point he sent an email to everyone in his life saying i'm going to commit suicide. 有一次，他给生命中的每个人发了一封邮件，说我要自杀了。 [11:34] and you know here's your last chance to talk me out of it. 你知道，这是你们最后一次劝我打消这个念头了。 [11:38] put that way it sounds like a kind of macabre and gratuitous appeal for attention. 这样说听起来像是一种病态的、无端的博取关注。 [11:44] but it it was more he was actually just being scrupulous to not kill himself so impulsively. 但实际上，他只是在谨慎地避免冲动自杀。 [11:50] that he would leave everyone in his life feeling like you know if only they had known they might have been able to do something. 以免他生命中的每个人都觉得，如果他们早知道，也许就能做些什么。 [11:55] so he just he was going to give everyone his life a chance to reason with him. 所以他只是想给生命中的每个人一个和他沟通的机会。 [12:05] and it was kind of of a piece with the reasons why he thought he was killing himself. 这和他认为自己要自杀的原因有些相似。 [12:09] he really thought he had reasoned himself to a position where suicide was not only 他真的认为自己已经理性地分析到，自杀不仅是 [12:15] acceptable but was really his best decision. 可以接受，但那确实是他最好的决定。 [12:19] and you know he had a very philosophy he wasn't a professional philosopher but he had a very philosophical cast of mind and he was quite smart and you know i went back and forth with him a little bit over email mostly and the experience was one of of seeing someone in my view mistake his his anhedonia you know his lack of joy in living moment to moment for a kind of philosophical epiphany which is to say if he felt better if he was feeling more joy if he was feeling more of a connection to other people he would feel he would he would have felt that the results of his reasoning on each of those points were less compelling and i know your argument is not an argument for suicide and it will differentiate anti-natalism from that but i'm just wondering if you feel that if the character of your experience 而且你知道他有一种哲学观，他不是专业的哲学家，但他有一种非常哲学的思维方式，而且他很聪明，你知道我主要通过电子邮件和他来回交流了一点，而这次经历在我看来，是看到一个人将他的快感缺失，你知道，他生活中缺乏快乐，当作一种哲学上的顿悟。 [13:16] were significantly better moment to moment if you feel like this philosophical conviction would just kind of evaporate or become so uninteresting to you that it would sort of evaporate. 从长远来看，如果你感觉如此，这种哲学信念就会消失，或者对你来说变得如此无趣，以至于它就会消失。 [13:28] well i don't like to talk about myself so i'm probably just not going to answer that question. 嗯，我不想谈论我自己，所以我可能不会回答这个问题。 [13:32] but i'll make a few observations and one is that i want not to make the assumption that somebody who holds the sort of view that i do is thinking about themself. 但我会提出几点观察，其中一点是，我不想假设持有我这种观点的人是在想自己。 [13:41] uh they may be thinking about themselves as well but they might be just thinking about everything they see around them in the world. 呃，他们可能也在想自己，但他们可能只是在想他们在世界上看到的一切。 [13:47] so just if you think about the amount of suffering that's going on in the world at any moment, you you have to be pretty coarse and callous to not take that seriously. 所以，如果你想到世界上任何时刻正在发生的苦难，你必须非常粗鲁和冷酷才能不认真对待它。 [13:58] so it needn't be about one's own experiences it needn't be about one's own attitudes. 所以它不必关乎一个人的自身经历，不必关乎一个人的自身态度。 [14:04] it might be a sort of sensitivity or an expression of what's going on in the world. 它可能是一种敏感性，或者是一种对世界上正在发生的事情的表达。 [14:09] so you sort of gave an example that's very um self-oriented and what i'm suggesting is that's not the only possible 所以你给出的例子有点以自我为中心，而我建议的是，那不是唯一可能的 [14:16] way of looking at things it's all it's also possible to arrive at these sorts of views by looking outward and looking and seeing what you see around you yeah no doubt no doubt and then of course the other point is that uh you spoke about him being anidonic but there are plenty of manic people out there and their views might be colored by their by their mania they may be deriving too much pleasure to actually see the world for what it is yeah it's hard to know what is normal here or what is a uncolored lens through which to look at these questions and there may in fact be no uncolored lens it may just be lenses all the way in so let's get into the details of your argument run through the the asymmetry argument for me so there's there's actually more than one asymmetry argument but there isn't kind of axiological asymmetry i think between benefits and harms between the good things and the bad things and obviously we're speaking with inner life the pains that you have the other harms you have these are bad and 看待事物的方式，也可以通过向外看，看看你周围看到的东西来得出这些观点。是的，毫无疑问，毫无疑问，当然，另一点是，嗯，你提到他有躁郁症，但外面有很多躁狂的人，他们的观点可能会被他们的躁狂所影响，他们可能会从中获得过多的快乐，以至于无法真正看清世界本来的样子。是的，很难知道这里的正常是什么，或者什么是看待这些问题的无偏见的视角，事实上可能根本就没有无偏见的视角，可能只有各种各样的视角。所以，让我们深入探讨你的论点细节，为我梳理一下不对称性论点。所以，实际上不止一个不对称性论点，但我认为在好处和坏处之间，在好事物和坏事物之间，存在一种价值上的不对称性。显然，我们谈论的是内在生活，你所经历的痛苦，你所遭受的其他伤害，这些都是坏的， [15:19] The good things that you have, those are good. 你拥有的好事是好的。 [15:23] But if we are considering the scenario in which somebody is going to be brought into existence, we have to compare the outcome in which they do from the outcome in which they don't exist. 但如果我们考虑某人将被带入存在的场景，我们必须比较他们存在的结局和他们不存在的结局。 [15:31] And when in the ark in which they don't exist, we have to consider the absent harms and the absent benefits. 而在他们不存在的方舟中，我们必须考虑缺失的伤害和缺失的益处。 [15:40] And I think that the absence of the harms is good, even though that person won't exist. 而且我认为没有伤害是好的，即使那个人不存在。 [15:46] Whereas the absence of the good things in that life is not going to be bad. 而那种生活中没有好事将不会是坏事。 [15:49] And that's because it's going to be nobody who's going to be deprived of those of those good things. 这是因为没有人会被剥夺那些好事。 [15:56] And so the asymmetry is really between the bad and the good in the scenario in which somebody doesn't exist. 所以不对称性实际上是在某人不存在的场景中，坏与好之间的。 [16:03] Okay, so it strikes me I kind of want to run through each piece of that again so that to make sure that I'm not making a mistake here in reasoning. 好的，所以我觉得我想再过一遍其中的每一部分，以确保我的推理没有出错。 [16:13] But it strikes me that you're there's kind of an imbalance here in how you're presenting that and you could be 但我觉得你在这里的呈现方式有点不平衡，而且你可能会 [16:21] conjuring the the asymmetry in a way so you're saying and just point out where i go wrong here. 以某种方式制造不对称性，所以你的意思是，指出我在这里哪里错了。 [16:26] you're saying that the absence of a good life can't be a harm because there's no one who is harmed. 你说没有好的生活就不能造成伤害，因为没有人受到伤害。 [16:34] there's no person who is deprived of this life so the absence of of goods is not a bad thing but the absence of a bad life is a good. 没有人被剥夺这种生活，所以没有好东西就不是坏事，但没有坏的生活就是好事。 [16:45] here you in my view you're you're kind of smuggling the absence of existence in as part of the good. 在这里，在我看来，你有点把不存在作为好的一部分偷偷带入。 [16:53] you're saying that the prevention of harm is a positive good even though there is no one who enjoys this absence of harm. 你说防止伤害是一种积极的善，即使没有人享受这种免受伤害的状态。 [17:01] is that where you you're kind of putting the rabbit in the hat. 这就是你把兔子放进帽子里的地方吗？ [17:05] well a lot of people have suggested that i'm doing that but uh the point i'm making here is not so much a metaphysical one as i say an axiological one it's about an asymmetry in of values between the good things and the bad things in life. 嗯，很多人都认为我这么做了，但是，我在这里提出的观点与其说是一个形而上学的问题，不如说是一个价值论的问题，它关乎生活中好事物和坏事物之间价值的不对称性。 [17:19] and one of the reasons why i think first 而我之所以认为首先 [17:22] Of all, I think this asymmetry is actually pretty intuitive and I think large numbers of people would accept it. 总的来说，我认为这种不对称性实际上是相当直观的，而且我认为很多人都会接受它。 [17:26] If until they see where it leads. 直到他们看到它会走向何方。 [17:29] But this basic asymmetry, I think, explains some other asymmetries that that many people would endorse. 但这种基本的不对称性，我认为，解释了许多人会赞同的其他一些不对称性。 [17:37] So here's, uh, here's an example: the large parts of the universe that are uninhabited. 所以，这里有一个例子：宇宙中大片未被居住的区域。 [17:42] There aren't beings there, certainly not sentient beings. 那里没有生命，当然也没有有感知能力的生命。 [17:47] And if we think about those uninhabited parts of the of the universe, we're not filled with, and nor do I think we should be, filled with remorse for the absent goods that they are there. 如果我们想到宇宙中那些未被居住的区域，我们不会感到，而且我认为我们也不应该感到，对那里不存在的善感到懊悔。 [17:57] So if we think about Mars, for example, where they could be Martians, but they aren't. 所以，如果我们以火星为例，那里本可以有火星人，但却没有。 [18:02] We don't think, "Gee, think about all that pleasure that those absent Martians could have. Isn't that a terrible thing?" 我们不会想：“哎呀，想想那些缺席的火星人本可以拥有的所有快乐。那不是很糟糕吗？” [18:09] We don't think that at all. 我们根本不这么想。 [18:11] Whereas I think if we think about the absence of, let's say, Martian wars, just like we have wars on Earth, and we think about the absence of all the suffering there. 然而，我认为如果我们想到，比如说，火星上没有战争，就像我们在地球上有战争一样，并且我们想到那里没有所有的痛苦。 [18:22] I think we said that's a pretty good thing. 我认为我们说那是一件好事。 [18:23] It's pretty good that they don't have that there. 他们那里没有那个是相当不错的。 [18:25] That there's nothing like that on Mars. 火星上没有这样的东西。 [18:26] That's an advantage that Mars has over Earth. 这是火星相对于地球的一个优势。 [18:31] But there's no one who doesn't have those harms. 但没有人没有那些伤害。 [18:34] Exactly, exactly. 没错，没错。 [18:34] But uh I still think that it's a good thing that there's the absence of that suffering on Mars. 但我仍然认为，火星上没有那种痛苦是一件好事。 [18:42] Now I'll grant you that there are many other possible asymmetries here that we should be concerned about. 现在我承认，这里存在许多其他可能的非对称性，我们应该对此感到担忧。 [18:46] So for instance, one thing you claim or at least I think it's implicit in some of your claims is that there's much more suffering or possible suffering than there is, you know, possible happiness or the or the the depth of it is far greater. 所以，例如，你声称的一件事，或者至少我认为在你的一些说法中是隐含的，那就是存在比你所知的可能幸福更多的痛苦或可能的痛苦，或者其深度要大得多。 [19:02] And so there's there's an asymmetry between suffering and happiness that is also just just swings the balance here. 因此，痛苦和幸福之间存在一种非对称性，这也只是在这里摇摆了平衡。 [19:09] So we'll talk about that, but here I feel like you you're you're running afoul of my intuitions here. 所以我们会谈论那个，但在这里我感觉你触犯了我的直觉。 [19:13] So and what you just said about the moral significance of canceling possible goods. 所以，你刚才说的关于取消可能的好事的道德意义。 [19:23] definitely stands in opposition to the work of every philosopher who is who's working on what is called existential risk now. 明确反对那些致力于所谓存在风险的哲学家的工作。 [19:30] so you can have philosophers like you know will mccaskill who will say that the greatest possible wrong would be to do something which put our species on track for you know self-annihilation and that would be in large measure not because of all the suffering that would be caused because you know if we're annihilated in in the right way it could be completely painless. 所以你可以有像威尔·麦卡斯基尔这样的哲学家，他们会说，最大的错误是做某事，使我们的物种走上自我毁灭的道路，这在很大程度上不是因为会造成的所有痛苦，因为你知道，如果我们以正确的方式被消灭，那可能是完全无痛的。 [19:53] it would be wrong because it would close the door to all of the the untold goods that could come from a billion years of creative involvement with the cosmos. 这是错误的，因为它会关上通往宇宙亿万年创造性参与所能带来的所有未曾言说的福祉的大门。 [20:06] if you knew there was some decision you took today that not only deprived your grandchildren from living the most glorious possible life they just have a you know a sort of glorious life but you deprived all of their descendants from even existing and discovering. 如果你知道你今天做出的某个决定，不仅剥夺了你的孙子过上最辉煌生活的可能，让他们仅仅过上一种你所说的辉煌生活，而且还剥夺了他们所有后代的存在和发现的机会。 [20:25] greater depths of beauty people are [20:28] persuaded and [20:29] i'm one of them that those hypothetical [20:33] losses are as real as [20:37] the hypothetical gain of of not [20:40] suffering if you don't exist [20:42] so i think that when we think about [20:43] human extinction there's something that [20:45] clouds people thinking and that's why [20:47] the moment you think [20:48] about the application of this asymmetry [20:50] to human extinction [20:52] all these other intuitions of the [20:53] driving come up [20:55] that's why the example i gave wasn't [20:57] about human extinction it was a place [20:58] of some other species let's say on [21:00] another planet that could have been [21:02] there and isn't there [21:03] and we don't spend any time worrying [21:05] about that nor do i think we should [21:06] spend any time worrying about the absent [21:08] pleasures over there [21:09] when we think about human extinction [21:11] there are some confounding variables the [21:13] one is [21:14] the mechanism whereby the extinction [21:16] takes place [21:17] so there's a distinction between whether [21:20] people sort of die out [21:21] or whether they're killed off and so one [21:24] way in which we could go extinct is [21:26] through people meeting an untimely end [21:29] and and being killed but another way is [21:33] for [21:33] everybody to die peacefully in their [21:35] beds and for the human species to have [21:37] come to an end because there was no more [21:38] reproduction [21:40] and i think a lot of what's going on [21:42] with people's intuitions is a mixing up [21:43] of those things [21:44] and then i think there's a lot of [21:46] sentimentality about the human species [21:50] there's this idea that it's a wonderful [21:51] species and we'd like it to be around [21:53] for a long time [21:54] and haven't we discovered and done all [21:56] sorts of wonderful things and wouldn't [21:58] be good if that whole trajectory of [21:59] scientific discovery went on [22:01] and there's a kind of sentimentality [22:03] about about having humans around [22:05] so i think that those sorts of factors [22:07] confound our thinking about cases of [22:09] human extinction [22:10] so i would like to move away from those [22:12] to think of the application of the [22:13] asymmetry to other cases and see how it [22:15] works [22:16] granted some people might be confounded [22:18] i don't think i [22:19] am here in fact i think there are a few [22:21] more things to say about [22:23] just canceling the human career that are [22:25] relevant here [22:27] but before we do i just want to linger [22:29] on this [22:30] what strikes me as a kind of an [22:33] asymmetry [22:34] that is giving you your your first [22:36] asymmetry here which is [22:38] you're accruing a good to [22:41] non-existent beings on one side of your [22:45] equation where you're not [22:47] on the other do you do you not see it [22:49] that way or you just think it's [22:50] justified [22:51] no i i do see it that way but i think [22:54] it's justified [22:55] there is this axiological asymmetry and [22:57] i think when you [22:58] do the calculation follow from that [23:01] the the cards are stacked against [23:04] bringing somebody into existence but [23:05] it's not an artificial stacking it's [23:07] it's one that makes eminent sense i [23:09] guess it's still [23:10] not making sense to me so let's just [23:12] spend a few more minutes on this so [23:14] we have a person who could have existed [23:17] but doesn't [23:18] and undoubtedly there are philosophical [23:20] problems with [23:21] thinking about possibility as well i [23:24] mean [23:25] you know are there are there these [23:26] possible things [23:28] or are there simply actual things and [23:32] we're actually just misled by our notion [23:34] of possibility but [23:36] leaving that aside i might have had a i [23:39] have two children [23:41] which already convicts me of monstrous [23:44] ethical labs on your account but we'll [23:45] leave that aside [23:46] but i have i have decided not to have a [23:48] third child you'll be happy to know [23:50] so this third child will not [23:53] experience anything good or anything bad [23:57] and on your account there's no [24:00] deprivation to him or her [24:03] for not being brought into existence on [24:05] account of [24:06] not getting to do all the good things [24:08] there are to do [24:09] but there is a benefit [24:13] to not suffering all of the inevitable [24:16] pains [24:16] of existence but that benefit doesn't [24:20] accrue to anyone [24:21] because no one by this description [24:23] exists [24:24] that's correct and it's impossible of [24:27] course if the person doesn't exist for [24:28] them to [24:29] enjoy the benefit but when we're looking [24:31] at scenarios of [24:32] bringing somebody into existence or not [24:35] we're having to con [24:36] compare those two cases one scenario in [24:38] which they do exist and one in which [24:40] they don't [24:41] and if we want to know what's better for [24:43] that potential person [24:44] we need to compare the situation in [24:46] which they do in the situation which [24:48] they don't [24:49] and we have to compare obviously the [24:51] scenario which they don't exist [24:52] to the one in which they do and make the [24:54] interest judgments uh [24:56] relative to the to the world in which [24:58] the person does exist how would this [25:00] calculation run for you [25:01] if existence was on balance [25:05] more pleasant and wonderful and creative [25:09] and beautiful so that every person who [25:11] comes into existence [25:13] runs a you know a a better than even [25:16] chance [25:17] of having a life worth living but still [25:20] there are [25:20] there are many lives that are not worth [25:22] living and [25:23] they come up quite frequently they're [25:25] just they just don't overwhelm [25:27] the lives that are worth living then how [25:29] would you think about it [25:30] well that very phrase a life worth [25:32] living i think is ambiguous [25:34] and i think it's ambiguous between a [25:36] life worth starting [25:37] and a life worth continuing and i think [25:40] one mistake people make is to [25:42] not see that ambiguity because i think [25:43] different standards ought to apply to [25:45] those two cases so if [25:47] at a given time there's more good in [25:49] your life than bad [25:51] then your life may indeed be worth [25:53] continuing i say may indeed because [25:55] there's some complexities there that we [25:56] could revisit later [25:58] but i think the bar for starting a life [26:00] is going to be much higher [26:02] let's stick with the starting of life [26:04] because we'll get on to whether life is [26:06] worth continuing [26:07] let's just say that we lived in a world [26:09] where at birth [26:11] every human being could expect [26:15] to have a a slightly better than even [26:17] chance i mean basically [26:18] they're like the house in a casino [26:21] playing blackjack right they have [26:23] whatever it is a 52 [26:24] chance of winning and winning in this [26:27] case really is winning [26:28] right there's no downside to winning [26:30] it's just the 52 percent of people who [26:32] have good lives [26:33] on balance really do have good lives on [26:36] balance any way you look at them [26:38] and then you know the 48 percent of [26:39] people who don't [26:41] have negative lives to one or another [26:44] degree [26:44] then how would you think about it well i [26:46] think even the lives that are good on [26:48] balance there's going to be plenty of [26:49] bad [26:50] but let's just stipulate that we live in [26:52] a world that's kind of like a coin toss [26:54] and if the right side of the coin comes [26:55] up [26:56] that is a a life on balance however you [26:59] want to [26:59] aggregate benefits and and injuries [27:02] so i'm not quite understanding the the [27:05] question here because [27:06] if the analogy is sort of winning at [27:08] blackjack well when you win you win [27:10] there's no downside to the winning uh [27:12] whereas [27:13] uh when you win in this life lottery [27:15] that you're speaking about [27:16] what i want to get clarity on is is [27:18] there no downside is this a life of [27:19] unmitigated good [27:21] or is there some negative as well and [27:23] from what you said i was understanding [27:25] you ought to be saying that there is [27:26] some bad as well it's just that on [27:28] balance it's good [27:29] i guess there could be some bad but it's [27:31] it is in the case of the lucky life it [27:34] is [27:34] outweighed by the good so that each of [27:36] your pains [27:38] are manageable enough that when your [27:40] pleasure comes around [27:42] you always feel that it was worth it and [27:45] let's let's just say that you're right [27:46] to feel that we've tuned [27:48] the luck of of lucky minds in such a way [27:51] that [27:51] that life is really good and [27:55] pain does not overwhelm pleasure [27:58] again you see when you say when you say [28:00] that you think it's worth [28:02] it are you saying it's worth it to have [28:04] come into existence or that it's worth [28:06] it to continue existing i am [28:08] without granting you that distinction [28:09] because i i'm not sure [28:11] i agree that exists but we'll get there [28:14] for the purposes of this point in the [28:17] conversation [28:18] i'm talking about coming into existence [28:21] so you don't exist [28:22] and i give you the opportunity to exist [28:26] and if you could if you were one of the [28:28] lucky ones you would [28:30] find yourself in a circumstance that was [28:32] well worth your time [28:33] well that i think is a confusion i grant [28:36] you that there are many people who say [28:38] i'm glad i was brought into existence [28:39] because i think on balance it's better [28:42] that i that i'm around i think i'm [28:43] getting more good than i am getting bad [28:45] but i just think that people who hold [28:47] that view have not thought carefully [28:48] enough [28:49] about what the question is i think that [28:51] they because they already exist [28:53] they're biased towards the condition in [28:56] which they already exist [28:57] and so what they're actually asking [28:58] themselves without realizing it [29:00] is is my life worth continuing but i [29:02] don't think there's any life that's [29:04] worth starting [29:05] and i think there's no life that's worth [29:06] starting because of this [29:08] asymmetry surely you would grant that [29:12] if existence were much much better than [29:15] it is in fact [29:17] you could imagine a life worth living [29:21] right i mean what what if existence just [29:22] had no suffering at all [29:24] in it right it was just one leap from [29:28] creative height to another and every [29:30] moment was more interesting than the [29:32] last [29:32] so i've considered that possibility and [29:34] i think in that scenario we should be [29:36] indifferent between [29:38] coming into existence and not but i got [29:40] to say that that scenario you've [29:41] imagined is actually pretty hard to [29:43] imagine in practice [29:45] hard to imagine any real such life but [29:46] yes if we imagine if you're thinking [29:48] about hypothetically a hypothetical life [29:49] where you come into existence [29:51] and there's nothing bad about that then [29:54] i would say we [29:54] are being different between that i think [29:56] we should be indifferent between coming [29:57] into existence in that condition and not [29:59] coming into existence at all [30:00] that is a a novel view that i have never [30:03] considered [30:04] i'm wondering whether to focus there for [30:07] a moment before [30:08] going on to capture some of these loose [30:10] threads [30:11] let's spend a moment on that if i posit [30:14] a kind of god-like paradise [30:18] for all conscious beings right so there [30:20] really is just [30:21] there's nothing wrong in the universe by [30:24] any [30:24] anything that you can say is wrong you [30:26] know like there's a little [30:27] ache and pain over here there's a little [30:29] dissatisfaction over here [30:31] i will just cancel that by saying no no [30:33] these [30:34] those are moments where there's there's [30:37] more pleasure flooding in [30:38] there and more even deeper sense of [30:41] meaning [30:42] even deeper gratification of one's [30:45] intellectual life [30:46] and these are these are beings who are [30:50] far more competent than you and i are to [30:53] judge [30:53] the character of their experience [30:55] they've had a billion years to consider [30:57] the matter [30:58] and they're still happy to be here [31:00] imagine minds constituted like that [31:02] why should we be indifferent to [31:06] that and the primordial dial tone [31:09] of non-existent see i think what's [31:12] dividing us here is the asymmetry [31:14] because if you [31:14] if you think there is the asymmetry that [31:16] i'm that i'm defending [31:18] then you'll say well there's nothing bad [31:20] in that edenic life that you're speaking [31:22] about [31:23] but there's also nothing bad in the [31:25] situation of non-existence [31:27] so uh that they're they're they're equal [31:30] now you'll say but in eden [31:32] they're all these pleasures and i say [31:33] that's great because if you [31:35] if you're in eden it's good that you [31:37] have those pleasures because your life [31:39] would be worse without them [31:40] but if you've never existed the absence [31:42] of those pleasures is going to mean [31:44] nothing to you you won't be there you [31:45] won't care about it it doesn't matter [31:47] that there's [31:48] that there's not a being that's having [31:49] those pleasures so if you think about i [31:51] don't know adam and eve [31:53] and then some third character that could [31:55] have been there this is before the fall [31:57] obviously and you say [31:58] well is it is it a pity that there's not [32:01] some additional being here that's not [32:02] enjoying eden [32:03] no i don't think there's anything bad [32:05] about that and i think it's there's an [32:07] is an indifference and there should be [32:09] an indifference [32:11] i can see that there's nothing bad about [32:12] it because there's no one to suffer [32:14] the absence of of those pleasures and [32:17] insights [32:18] but again by the same token i i'm i'm [32:20] not convinced that [32:22] you can make the other move you're [32:23] making which is to say that there's [32:24] something good about not [32:26] having the suffering imposed on you if [32:28] you don't exist if you don't exist [32:29] you can't feel the relief of not being [32:32] tortured [32:32] because you don't exist so i feel like [32:34] that's the there's a symmetry there [32:36] of just non-being let's come back to you [32:40] if it's your third possible child uh [32:43] let's imagine you were thinking about [32:44] having a third child and [32:46] you did some genetic tests and you found [32:49] out that this child that you could have [32:51] would lead a life that even by your [32:53] standards is [32:54] one of great suffering and so you decide [32:57] well we're not going to go ahead with [32:58] this third child we're not going to have [32:59] this third child [33:01] um do you think that would be a good [33:03] thing yes [33:05] and do you think you've got a reason to [33:07] avoid bringing that child into existence [33:10] but the reason is one [33:14] which is predicated on the existence of [33:17] the child [33:18] and therefore the existence of his or [33:20] her suffering [33:22] we're talking here about the absence of [33:23] a wrong [33:25] that i'm not committing by bringing this [33:27] guaranteed to suffer [33:28] person into existence so you're [33:30] imagining some scenario in which this [33:32] child does exist and is leading a life [33:34] of suffering [33:35] and you say well i've got a reason to [33:36] avoid that right [33:39] now let's imagine that you're thinking [33:41] of having this third child [33:42] and you do the tests and everything's [33:46] fine [33:46] and so it could turn out like your other [33:48] children are and i don't know your [33:49] children i hope they're doing well as [33:50] well as can be [33:52] but let's imagine they're doing they [33:54] they're doing well in this third child [33:55] the probability is that it'll be like [33:57] that let's just say on their their worst [33:59] afternoons they'll confirm [34:00] everything you fear about the nature of [34:02] existence are your children yes [34:06] they will they can complain about the [34:07] most insubstantial things and [34:09] you'd be amazed at how much anguish can [34:12] be provoked by [34:12] yeah not having the television turned [34:15] off prematurely [34:16] right but uh but let's imagine that this [34:19] third child [34:20] would lead a happy life by your [34:21] standards right uh do you have a reason [34:23] to bring that child into existence [34:25] well let's leave aside all the other [34:27] reasons that no doubt you've considered [34:29] just you know [34:29] their effect on other people their [34:31] effect on me all that just so just [34:33] localizing the benefit to the person [34:38] yes i think so i think that there's [34:42] i mean this this comes down to [34:43] population ethics and topics that i hope [34:46] will touch [34:46] but there is a kind of more is better [34:49] principle here [34:50] when you're talking about good lives [34:52] these are all fascinating questions and [34:54] they connect to [34:55] more or less everything that's [34:56] fascinating so it's i'm just trying to [34:58] resist the slide into [34:59] philosophy here but it seems to me that [35:03] much of what you're saying about [35:05] bringing people into existence [35:07] does in fact apply to the continuing [35:11] existence of [35:12] existing people i know you draw a clear [35:15] line of demarcation there i i'm not so [35:17] sure you can and [35:18] and i think this is an additional [35:20] problem for me here so [35:22] how is it not analogous for me to say [35:24] well i have a child [35:26] and there was there was something very [35:28] very good [35:30] that could have happened to her i could [35:33] have [35:33] secured some benefit for her that [35:37] she doesn't know about but i declined to [35:40] do that [35:40] right so she has the life she has but i [35:43] could have given her [35:44] the super enhanced life with really very [35:48] little effort on my part [35:49] you're talking about an existing child [35:51] an existing child but i declined to do [35:53] that so she now she has [35:55] her life as it was and was going to be [35:58] but it could have been otherwise and i [36:00] you know for quite capricious reasons of [36:02] my own [36:03] you know because i didn't want to spend [36:05] 10 seconds to sign a form or [36:07] click a button on a website she does not [36:10] have this extraordinarily positive thing [36:13] happen for her and she doesn't know [36:16] about it right so [36:17] has she been wronged in any way [36:21] and i think most people's intuitions [36:23] would be yes [36:25] and yet on your account i'm wondering if [36:28] i if i could say that [36:30] well we're talking about a case of an [36:31] existing child here and i think there [36:33] are all kinds of other complexities [36:35] about about this case [36:36] uh i mean whether she had some [36:38] entitlement to your bestowing this [36:40] benefit there all kinds of questions of [36:42] that kind but [36:42] you you are speaking about an existing [36:45] child and so i would say that this child [36:47] is worse off [36:48] without this benefits having been [36:49] bestowed so whether you've wronged us [36:52] is another question but she's worse off [36:54] than she would have been [36:56] if you'd bestowed this benefit but i [36:58] don't think that a parallel claim can be [37:00] made [37:00] about a child that you don't bring into [37:02] existence [37:03] although if it had come into into [37:06] existence it would have had certain [37:07] benefits [37:08] i think the absence of those benefits [37:10] because it doesn't come into existence [37:12] is not bad [37:13] it's not bad because it's not deprived [37:16] where whereas your existing child will [37:17] be [37:18] deprived of this benefit you could you [37:20] could have given [37:21] another point of confusion for me here [37:23] is that you acknowledge [37:25] a spectrum of experience ranging from [37:28] the very very positive [37:29] to the very very negative but when you [37:32] take the zero point of non-existence [37:35] you say that we should be indifferent [37:37] between zero [37:38] and the very very positive whereas we [37:41] shouldn't be indifferent between zero [37:43] and the very very negative the very very [37:44] negative [37:45] is worse obviously and we should avoid [37:47] it and we should choose zero every time [37:49] over the very very negative but [37:51] we should be indifferent to zero over [37:54] the very very positive [37:55] but i'm not quite sure how that that [37:58] would work in practice so imagine if we [38:00] you know we're sliding down the ramp of [38:04] a hedonic experience we start at the [38:06] very very positive and we start [38:08] life gets worse and worse and worse and [38:10] worse and worse until it gets [38:12] truly neutral and maybe there's other [38:14] forms of neutral beyond [38:16] the lights going out but if really at [38:18] least one form of neutral is [38:21] not having any discernible experience [38:24] and then we just keep on sliding and [38:26] things get a little bit bad and a little [38:28] bit worse and [38:29] and all of a sudden we're in hell it [38:31] seems to me that if you're going to [38:32] preserve the the logical integrity of [38:35] that spectrum [38:37] you'd have to acknowledge that better [38:39] really is better than [38:40] than nothing see again i don't think i [38:43] don't think that it is [38:44] in this assignment of of zero that [38:47] you're proposing is something that [38:48] i've anticipated before and i've [38:52] got an analogy to to deal with a case [38:54] like of course it's only an analogy it [38:56] it can't be a like the case that we're [38:58] speaking about in every respect [39:00] but i imagine these two people the one [39:02] is we call him sick and the other we [39:04] call [39:05] healthy and sick gets sick [39:09] but he's also got some attribute whereby [39:12] he recovers quickly from his sickness [39:15] and healthy never gets sick i mean never [39:18] never ever gets sick but he lacks the [39:20] attribute of quick recovery [39:22] so if h were to where to get sick he [39:24] wouldn't quickly recover it would be a [39:26] very [39:26] slow very slow recovery [39:30] now what i want to say about sick is [39:32] that that [39:33] capacity for quick recovery that that's [39:35] good and it's good [39:37] for sick but the absence of that [39:39] capacity [39:40] in the healthy person is not a [39:44] not a net disadvantage over over sick [39:47] because he never has any need for that [39:50] right [39:51] and so i think we should say a similar [39:54] thing about these scenarios about [39:55] existing and non-existing [39:57] and that these absent pleasures are [40:00] not bad relative to the other scenario [40:02] in other words they're not a net [40:04] disadvantage in comparison with [40:07] the scenario in which the person exists [40:09] so i want to resist that sort of [40:11] attribution of let's say zero to [40:14] the absence of uh the of the pleasures [40:17] or the absence of the good things in [40:18] life [40:19] if they're the absent good things of a [40:22] non-existent person [40:23] so not all of my intuitions are being [40:25] conserved here i mean i will say here on [40:27] on this point your [40:28] your view is especially buddhist and [40:31] for people who might be surprised by [40:33] that and i don't know how [40:35] familiar you are with buddhist [40:37] philosophy but i'll just say that [40:39] on the buddhist account existence is the [40:41] problem [40:42] and they have this obviously this view [40:44] of rebirth and [40:46] and karma and there's what's called a [40:49] wheel of becoming you know life after [40:51] life you just can't [40:52] get off this wheel unless you become [40:54] fully enlightened [40:56] enlightenment consists in no longer [41:00] being subjected to this continuous cycle [41:03] of rebirth [41:05] there's obviously very good reason to to [41:06] doubt that picture of existence [41:08] scientifically but the core of the [41:11] ethical view there and the [41:13] soteriological view the the view of what [41:16] it means to be [41:17] free is that existence has this [41:21] intrinsically unsatisfying character and [41:24] you know this is [41:25] for reasons that we really haven't gone [41:26] into yet it's just the fact that [41:28] everything is impermanent you know [41:29] your pleasures no matter how good always [41:32] fall away and you're left with more of a [41:34] search for [41:34] pleasure there's a kind of intrinsic [41:37] dissatisfaction even in satisfaction [41:41] it wouldn't be bad if no one existed [41:44] and the fact that people exist in a [41:46] circumstance that is [41:48] perfect to frustrate the search for [41:51] happiness and well-being [41:52] is the problem and enlightenment is the [41:56] the act of canceling all of the the kind [41:59] of the mental properties that would [42:00] cause one to continually be reborn [42:02] into existence so your view is very [42:06] buddhist without offering the the [42:09] methodology of enlightenment or unless [42:10] you [42:11] you do that and i i don't know about it [42:13] or the odd metaphysic of [42:15] of reincarnation exactly yeah [42:18] but there are a few other wrinkles here [42:20] in buddhism and one is that [42:21] it's possible through a really deep [42:25] engagement in you know methods like [42:28] meditation [42:29] to come to a kind of equanimity that [42:32] equalizes pain and pleasure to a [42:35] remarkable degree and to find a kind of [42:37] intrinsic well-being [42:38] in just the nature of consciousness and [42:40] that does make some of this [42:42] some of the the buddhist view that i i [42:44] just described [42:46] somewhat paradoxical i mean it's not the [42:48] problem of existence can really go away [42:50] to a remarkable degree [42:52] on the buddhist account and so that's [42:54] all just a long way of saying that [42:56] your view is in in very good standing [42:59] with with [43:00] certain trends in in eastern philosophy [43:02] and [43:03] it just doesn't capture everything they [43:05] say but [43:07] let's take this distinction between the [43:10] possible lives and the the existing [43:12] lives and their interests because i'm [43:14] not [43:14] so sure you're conserving my intuitions [43:16] there [43:17] why would it be a bad thing for everyone [43:20] to die [43:21] tonight painlessly in their sleep [43:24] let's just picture what this entails so [43:26] everyone goes to sleep [43:28] none the wiser they don't know this is [43:30] their last day on earth [43:31] there's been no dread in anticipation of [43:34] the lights going out but everyone based [43:37] on some [43:38] bad luck or good luck depending on your [43:40] view dies [43:41] painlessly in his or her sleep so [43:44] there's no bereavement [43:45] there's no experience of this there's [43:47] just the lights going out in [43:49] seven billion brains all at once what [43:52] could be wrong with that well i think [43:55] that those of us who do exist [43:57] have an interest in continuing to exist [43:59] we've got an interest in not being [44:01] annihilated [44:02] and the scenario you are presenting is [44:04] one in which we are annihilated [44:06] why do we have an interest in being [44:08] reborn tomorrow [44:10] from the womb of sleep if existence is [44:14] as you say such that bringing [44:17] people into into it is a terrible [44:20] crime well i think the analogy is not [44:23] correct i don't think we are [44:25] reborn i mean we reborn in a [44:26] metaphorical sense but uh not literally [44:29] i think they're all kinds of things that [44:30] are going on in our sleep we're [44:32] we're continuing to exist in a kind of [44:33] dispositional state [44:35] our interests in continuing to live are [44:38] surviving through that period of sleep [44:41] as are many of our desires and our [44:42] preferences [44:44] and i think if we die in our sleep one [44:47] of our interests very important [44:48] interests at least one if not many of [44:50] them thought have been thwarted [44:52] i can't see how we have any more [44:53] interest than [44:55] a new being would again [44:59] you have to imagine just canceling [45:02] all of the usual problems with people [45:05] dying right [45:06] they don't know they're going to die so [45:08] there's no imposed suffering [45:10] in advance and there's no one around to [45:12] suffer their loss [45:13] there's no grief there's not even a a [45:16] single neuron in a single brain [45:18] disposed to grieve about what's happened [45:20] because no one [45:22] knows that it will happen and no one's [45:24] around to know that it has happened [45:26] how is that not analogous to someone not [45:29] coming into existence [45:31] on the next day because somebody doesn't [45:33] exist i think has got no interest in [45:35] coming into existence [45:36] but somebody who already exists has got [45:38] an interest in not ceasing to exist [45:41] now one thing i should add here is that [45:43] i think these two users are separable in [45:45] other words the asymmetry argument that [45:46] i've given before and the argument that [45:48] i'm giving you now [45:49] these are two separate arguments so it's [45:51] possible for an anti-natalist [45:53] to also be a pro-mortalist of the kind [45:55] that you're suggesting [45:56] so if somebody thinks that a painless [45:59] death or let's say death itself [46:00] is not bad for the person who dies and [46:03] then we add all the stipulations that [46:04] you've added if somebody thinks that [46:06] then they said there's nothing wrong [46:07] with a scenario there's nothing bad [46:09] about the scenario you've described [46:11] but that's a separate view from the from [46:14] the tree that i've been [46:16] uh presenting so you can have the [46:18] asymmetry that i presented earlier and [46:20] then you can either couple that with the [46:21] view [46:22] i'm offering now about ceasing to exist [46:25] or you needn't couple it with that [46:27] that's precisely the point [46:28] i don't see how you can keep them apart [46:32] if existence has the character that you [46:35] you say that it has and you know i would [46:37] grant you it's you're on very firm [46:39] ground [46:39] thinking that pains are worse than [46:41] pleasures and that there are more of [46:43] them [46:43] and you know we can talk about that but [46:45] if it really is [46:47] bad to be brought into the world and not [46:50] just a little bad it's [46:51] really really bad then [46:54] i don't see how that doesn't extend [46:58] to the moral character of waking up the [47:01] next day [47:02] and if i can give you a situation where [47:04] there's there are no [47:06] ancillary harms accrued by by somebody [47:09] dying [47:10] and you know implicit in everything [47:12] you're saying about existence [47:14] is the claim that you know all of these [47:16] canceled goods [47:18] of you know future people don't mean [47:20] anything right i mean [47:21] there is no there's no moral weight to [47:23] place on all the good things that could [47:25] have happened had humanity continued [47:27] because those are these are hypothetical [47:29] goods that accrue to no one [47:31] how is it that having everyone die [47:34] painlessly in their sleep [47:35] wouldn't be on your account a good thing [47:38] and in fact [47:39] perhaps the best possible thing we could [47:42] imagine [47:43] having happen like if you could do it if [47:45] you could push that button [47:47] you would be a moral hero of a sort that [47:49] has never existed [47:51] so i'm not quite sure how to how to [47:54] approach this other than the way i have [47:55] before but i think one mistake that you [47:57] that you're making is when you attribute [47:59] to me to view that [48:01] life is is terrible um i think you're [48:04] oversimplifying where the [48:06] terrible things happen so it often gets [48:09] worse towards the end [48:10] so it may be that early on in life if [48:12] all's going well [48:14] you're not suffering in the kind of [48:15] extreme way that you will later [48:18] now if you're thinking about bringing [48:19] somebody into existence you've got to [48:20] think not just about when they tend and [48:22] when they're 20 and when they're 30 but [48:24] also when they're 60 70 and 80. [48:26] you have to think about that part too i [48:29] think very few parents think about that [48:30] they don't think about [48:31] the the cancer that's going to ravage [48:33] their future adult child's body [48:36] uh decades uh in in the future and often [48:39] decades after the parent has died [48:41] they don't even think about that but [48:42] they should be thinking about that that [48:44] should be something that they're [48:45] factoring in [48:46] and if you factor that in then i think [48:48] what you should say is i want not to be [48:50] creating a child that's going to be [48:51] susceptible or [48:53] liable to this sort of this sort of [48:54] experience and sort of suffering [48:56] but that doesn't mean to say that when [48:57] the child has been brought into [48:59] existence and is [49:00] let's say 10 or 20 and hasn't got to [49:02] that point of life yet [49:04] that it is now in that child's interests [49:06] to uh to end its life [49:08] so on your account and i think you know [49:11] quite fairly on your account [49:13] existence is quite a bit worse than that [49:16] i mean cancer is not [49:18] what makes existence bad i mean when you [49:20] look at the the kinds of lives that [49:22] most people live even up to the age of [49:25] 10 [49:26] it's quite rational to suppose that [49:29] there is [49:29] more suffering than happiness on balance [49:33] i agree i wasn't suggesting that there's [49:35] the absence of that [49:37] look one analogy that i gave in in the [49:39] book was about going let's say to the [49:41] theater or to the cinema [49:42] it's making you go and the form of the [49:44] play that you that you're watching is [49:46] not nearly as good as you thought it was [49:48] going to be [49:50] but it's not so bad that you would leave [49:52] you've come out you've bought the ticket [49:54] you're there [49:55] and you're getting something out of it [49:58] perhaps enough not to walk out of the [49:59] theater [50:00] but if you'd known in advance that it [50:02] was this bad you you you wouldn't have [50:04] come [50:05] right and i think that there are many [50:07] stages of life where it's like that [50:10] where this is really not a great deal [50:13] that you that you've got [50:14] but uh it's not worth walking out yet [50:16] now that's not to say there doesn't come [50:18] a time [50:18] when it's worth walking out doesn't say [50:20] there's not a time when suicide might be [50:23] exactly the right option for you [50:25] but once you're there you're sort of [50:27] going to stick it out for now [50:28] but you wouldn't have come in the first [50:30] place and i think that's exactly the [50:32] view we should take about [50:33] about existence not worth starting but [50:36] once you're here [50:37] and you've got this interest in [50:38] continuing to exist stick it out until [50:41] such time as [50:42] it really becomes unbearable and then [50:44] suicide might be reasonable [50:46] well again i feel like you're smuggling [50:48] into my [50:49] kind of purified case of mass death all [50:52] of the other problems with suicide which [50:54] is you know suicide [50:55] is guaranteed to be messy and painful [50:57] and leave people [50:59] bereaved and all that and and so those [51:01] are the interests in continuing to exist [51:03] i mean the interests [51:04] that people have in not killing [51:06] themselves [51:07] entail quite a bit more than the [51:09] interest in [51:10] continuing to exist if i can [51:14] create a case where losing one's life [51:17] is completely painless and poses no [51:20] burden on anyone else [51:22] and you don't know what's going to [51:24] happen and you never know that it has [51:25] happened [51:26] right so i think i can see where our [51:28] point of disagreement is [51:31] so when when i say that we've got an [51:33] interest in [51:34] in not ceasing to exist you think that i [51:37] mean [51:38] that the interest consists in either [51:42] my sense of foreboding or in the [51:45] bereavement that [51:46] my relatives will have and that's not [51:48] what i mean well no no i'm just saying [51:50] those are those are [51:51] in powerful confounding factors there [51:53] are and i'm happy to set those aside i [51:55] agree with you we should set those aside [51:57] what i'm saying additionally david is [51:58] that your only conceivable interest in [52:01] continuing to exist [52:03] has to contain that life on [52:06] balance is worth living right it has to [52:09] contain some judgment about the [52:11] character of life [52:12] uh no i don't think so because i think [52:15] that [52:15] even at least you're saying it's not [52:17] excruciating well i think even in [52:19] extremists i think when people [52:20] are in that stage where death is the [52:23] lesser of the two evils [52:25] uh i think it's still an evil it's maybe [52:28] the lesser of the two evils but it's [52:29] still an evil it's still something to be [52:30] regretted [52:32] but why because there's no one around to [52:33] suffer its continuity [52:35] so that's the that's the epi-korean [52:38] argument uh so you [52:39] you're taking the sort of line that if [52:41] you don't know about it [52:43] and you and others can't experience it [52:45] and there's nothing bad about it [52:47] well yeah i would agree with that but [52:49] let's drill down further on [52:50] the transition from life to death so [52:52] let's just assume [52:54] for argument's sake this seems somewhat [52:55] plausible it is [52:57] you know leaving aside all of the pain [52:59] and suffering that surrounds the moment [53:01] of death or can surround it [53:03] the actual transition from the conscious [53:06] continuity of being alive [53:08] to no longer existing is something that [53:12] we'd all be fairly familiar with by in [53:15] the in the act of falling asleep or [53:16] going under general anesthesia right so [53:18] there's this moment where the lights are [53:20] on [53:20] and then they're off and [53:24] you're you were you know more or less [53:26] aware of that transition [53:28] let's say you in the general case you're [53:30] not aware of it it's just [53:32] you're aware of it retrospectively [53:33] because you wake up in the morning or [53:35] you come to on the [53:36] the gurney after surgery i think we can [53:39] leave aside [53:40] whatever dis analogy there is between a [53:43] brain that is [53:44] that is dead and a brain that is [53:46] sleeping from from the the [53:47] perspective of of most conscious [53:50] witnesses [53:51] there is this hiatus there's this break [53:54] in the continuity of conscious [53:55] experience [53:56] and if that break continued for the rest [53:59] of the [53:59] you know all of time there'd be no one [54:02] around to suffer [54:04] the deprivation of of life so how is it [54:07] that [54:08] beings have a continued interest in [54:10] existing [54:11] independent of making a claim about [54:15] the value of a life well let me ask you [54:17] this so [54:18] when you go to sleep at night let's [54:19] imagine you've got some sort of [54:21] long-term [54:22] goal or desire and you go to sleep at [54:25] night [54:26] what do you think happens at that point [54:27] do you think that the desire the goal [54:29] gets obliterated [54:30] and that when you wake up the next [54:32] morning it miraculously reforms [54:36] or do you think that it's there in some [54:38] sort of dispositional state [54:39] during your sleep well it's certainly [54:41] there in the sense that [54:43] i have a brain that could recall the [54:46] goal [54:47] given the right circumstances but if the [54:50] brain never wakes up [54:52] and there's no one to whom the loss of a [54:55] goal [54:56] accrues there's no person who was better [55:00] off having a goal [55:01] and now doesn't have one so if your goal [55:04] was to wake up the next morning [55:06] and you don't wake up the next morning [55:08] don't you think your goal has been [55:09] thwarted [55:10] there is no goal seeker anymore [55:13] who we can point to as the victim of [55:15] that loss yeah and that's the epicurean [55:17] argument [55:18] i don't think there's a knock down [55:19] argument against that position [55:21] uh the vast majority of humanity don't [55:23] share that intuition though [55:25] so if we if we are comparing intuitions [55:27] uh most people and i think there's some [55:30] argument as well for this position i [55:32] think that [55:33] death can be bad for us even if uh [55:36] we are not around to experience this [55:38] deprivation [55:39] i think again for all the reasons you [55:41] cite there's so many [55:43] contaminating harms and and hopes and [55:45] fears around [55:47] death that in the general case it does [55:50] seem like a very bad thing given [55:52] how much pain and suffering come in his [55:54] wake [55:55] but the pro-mortalis position seems to [55:57] me to be [55:58] of a piece with the with the [56:00] anti-natalist position [56:01] in the right circumstances because [56:03] what's motivating [56:05] the anti-natalist position is this [56:08] judgment about the character of [56:09] existence [56:11] and the judgment runs far deeper than i [56:14] realized i mean now i realize on the [56:15] basis of this conversation with you that [56:17] there is no way to make existence good [56:20] enough [56:21] such that it is any better than non [56:24] non-existent which is not an intuition [56:27] obviously that most people would share [56:30] there's no way to tune the dials of [56:32] positive [56:33] existence so as to make it better than [56:35] zero [56:36] and it is much much worse than zero [56:39] generally speaking [56:40] and for you know any world we can find [56:43] plausible [56:44] so again uh i think that you could hold [56:48] that view [56:48] and if you do hold that view about death [56:50] then you could [56:51] hold it alongside the anti-natalist [56:54] position [56:54] but i don't think you have to uh [56:59] let me just interject one thing here the [57:01] badness [57:02] of dying you know again separate from [57:06] all of the ancillary pain and suffering [57:07] around death but just the badness of [57:10] having let's say in this case your goals [57:13] canceled even though you no longer exist [57:15] to have found them canceled [57:17] think of how how much weight you need to [57:19] have on that side of the balance [57:21] so as to cancel the goodness [57:24] of no longer being subjected to the [57:27] misery [57:28] and the risk of even greater misery [57:31] imposed on everyone by merely existing [57:34] yeah i realize that and if you ask me if [57:38] there's one area where i where i have [57:40] the greatest doubts [57:42] it's about it's about this it's about uh [57:45] whether we aren't just deceiving [57:46] ourselves in general about [57:48] how bad death is but i think that [57:51] if if we do go down that route then even [57:54] when we [57:55] add some of the confounding variables [57:57] that that you wanted to exclude [57:59] we might have a much broader case for [58:01] for suicide [58:03] but i think there are sort of epistemic [58:06] questions here [58:07] so let's imagine you take your own life [58:10] and you're wrong about that [58:12] let's imagine uh epicurus is is wrong [58:14] and i'm right about [58:16] uh the badness of death then you've [58:18] you've done a [58:19] done a pretty momentous thing and if [58:22] you've taken somebody else's life [58:24] you've done an even more serious thing [58:26] whereas i think on the antenatalist [58:28] question [58:29] if i'm wrong and you would not have [58:32] harmed [58:32] anybody by bringing them into existence [58:34] and you hadn't brought them into [58:36] existence [58:37] there's really no harm done yeah i can [58:40] certainly follow you there [58:42] in the sense that it seems highly [58:45] unintuitive to claim that [58:48] a person who declined to have a child [58:52] that could have been happy [58:54] is guilty of some kind of monstrous evil [58:57] for not bringing that life into [58:58] existence [58:59] doesn't seem equivalent to murdering [59:01] somebody no [59:02] it doesn't except when you talk about [59:05] all possible [59:06] future human lives and you get into [59:09] questions of [59:10] existential risk then my sympathy grows [59:13] then i think well [59:14] there's no telling how good life could [59:17] have been [59:18] there's no telling how beautiful the [59:20] universe [59:21] of conscious minds could have been and [59:23] if you're turning the lights out on the [59:25] universe [59:26] well it's certainly one of the worst [59:28] things that you could do i mean [59:30] it's not as bad as creating a universe [59:32] that is nothing but a hell [59:34] and imposing limitless suffering on [59:37] people but [59:38] let me see if i can take a kind of a [59:39] bird's-eye view of the situation because [59:41] this is the way i view moral questions [59:42] and questions of value [59:44] generally i don't know if you're [59:45] familiar with my work on this topic [59:48] basically i think we're confused by [59:51] standard philosophical terms like [59:52] morality and [59:53] duty and i think the way [59:57] that makes the most sense to think about [59:58] these things is to just recognize that [01:00:00] we live in a universe [01:00:02] of possible minds and possible [01:00:04] experiences [01:00:06] there are minds of varying character [01:00:08] both actual and possible [01:00:10] that are susceptible to a wide range of [01:00:13] experience and and we know this [01:00:16] experience [01:00:17] can be very very good or very very [01:00:19] negative and we don't [01:00:20] we obviously don't know how far that [01:00:23] spectrum [01:00:24] can reach in in either direction right [01:00:26] so we don't know how bad the worst [01:00:28] experience [01:00:29] might be and we don't we don't know how [01:00:30] good the best experiences [01:00:32] might be but we have every reason to [01:00:34] believe that they can get much worse [01:00:36] than we have [01:00:37] personally seen or even collectively [01:00:39] seen and we have every reason to believe [01:00:40] they get they can get much better than [01:00:42] we have seen or [01:00:43] or are likely to ever see for minds you [01:00:47] know constituted differently than our [01:00:48] own and and one of the [01:00:50] the ethical moments where we will soon [01:00:53] face [01:00:53] is in designing artificial minds and [01:00:56] designing artificial intelligence [01:00:57] we'll have to worry whether we're [01:00:59] building conscious minds [01:01:00] that can suffer i take that question [01:01:03] seriously [01:01:04] that would be on your account and really [01:01:06] you know i think in any account [01:01:07] a terrible thing to do to build minds [01:01:10] that perhaps are even far more sensitive [01:01:12] to suffering than our own [01:01:13] and build them to suffer in ways that [01:01:16] perhaps we can't imagine and and this [01:01:18] would this would be a bad thing [01:01:19] whether or not we know we have done this [01:01:22] the worst case is we could do this in a [01:01:23] way that [01:01:24] we never find out we've done this and [01:01:25] we've just created hells and populated [01:01:28] them [01:01:28] in our computers so we live in a [01:01:32] you know what i call a moral landscape [01:01:34] that has peaks and valleys and we are [01:01:36] just kind of [01:01:37] edging into the fog seeking higher [01:01:41] ground [01:01:41] both personally and collectively this [01:01:44] landscape has [01:01:45] some features of a normal landscape as [01:01:47] one of the reasons why i think the [01:01:48] analogy [01:01:49] is interesting is that clearly there's [01:01:51] not just one peak [01:01:52] there are many equivalent peaks and they [01:01:55] may be equivalent in terms of of the [01:01:56] well-being experience there but they're [01:01:58] very different [01:01:59] in all other ways if you're on one [01:02:02] you're not on another and and you [01:02:04] your mind has to function by very [01:02:06] different properties but they might be [01:02:07] the same [01:02:08] in terms of well-being and there are [01:02:11] valleys that are [01:02:12] different from one another but they [01:02:13] might be you know similarly low [01:02:15] points in terms of the the kind of [01:02:17] suffering there [01:02:18] so when we're talking about questions of [01:02:20] value and questions of morality [01:02:22] what i think we're talking about really [01:02:24] are just this [01:02:25] prospect of navigating away [01:02:28] from the worst possible suffering for [01:02:31] everyone [01:02:32] towards something better both personally [01:02:34] and collectively and [01:02:36] there's no telling how good things can [01:02:38] get and [01:02:40] even acknowledging all of the [01:02:42] descriptive truths you point to of our [01:02:44] world that there's there's [01:02:46] is on balance much more suffering than [01:02:48] happiness [01:02:49] or at least it's more reliably attained [01:02:52] you know our pleasures don't [01:02:54] last very long we all wind up dying [01:02:57] at some point in in ways that are more [01:02:59] or less painful [01:03:01] and unpleasant i think it's important to [01:03:02] recognize that there's no telling how [01:03:04] much that could change in the future [01:03:05] with the right sorts of breakthroughs [01:03:07] right there's no telling [01:03:09] how good end-of-life care [01:03:12] could get you know with a thousand years [01:03:14] of good science [01:03:15] under our belts so to say that our [01:03:17] descendants will always suffer [01:03:20] from cancer say or some protracted [01:03:22] illness [01:03:23] it's quite unlikely that that that would [01:03:25] be true if we continue to make progress [01:03:28] so i basically look at this picture [01:03:31] of the rightness or wrongness of any [01:03:34] question [01:03:35] reducing to a kind of navigation problem [01:03:39] all these experiences on offer for all [01:03:42] the [01:03:42] possible minds and we know that [01:03:46] the worst possible suffering for [01:03:48] everyone [01:03:49] is a terrible outcome and [01:03:52] virtually every other outcome or i would [01:03:54] say in fact every other outcome [01:03:56] is better than that and we are just [01:03:58] navigating away [01:03:59] from the worst possible misery for [01:04:02] everyone [01:04:03] to something better and you're you're [01:04:05] certainly acknowledging that there's [01:04:07] there are many things that are better [01:04:09] than the worst possible misery for [01:04:11] everyone and [01:04:12] non-existence is is certainly one of [01:04:14] those things that's better [01:04:15] but there's all of these other things [01:04:16] that are better and i would say [01:04:19] again this is one place where we diverge [01:04:21] you would say that [01:04:22] none of these things are better no [01:04:23] matter how good they are than [01:04:26] non-existence [01:04:27] but leaving that aside for a second [01:04:29] everything i'm i'm hearing from you [01:04:31] i'm i'm trying to map onto this this [01:04:34] navigation problem [01:04:35] and if you're going to tell me that [01:04:38] human life [01:04:39] to keep it the local case here is so [01:04:42] reliably bad [01:04:43] that having children even in a [01:04:46] circumstance where you can [01:04:48] be pretty confident that you'll assure [01:04:51] them a [01:04:52] what's considered a very good human life [01:04:54] in our context right [01:04:55] you're not giving birth you know in [01:04:57] haiti during the earthquake you're [01:04:59] living a [01:04:59] a life of abundance in the developed [01:05:02] world [01:05:03] you're telling me that life is so bad [01:05:05] that bringing those [01:05:07] a child into this world is a monstrous [01:05:09] evil i [01:05:10] can't see how that doesn't give you [01:05:14] really by definition something like [01:05:17] the pro-mortalis position because [01:05:20] in order to cancel that in order to say [01:05:22] that this misery [01:05:24] on offer is worth going through tomorrow [01:05:27] morning when you wake up [01:05:29] you have to say that death is [01:05:33] intrinsically a terrible terrible thing [01:05:36] and its badness somehow persists [01:05:40] even when you don't exist i don't see [01:05:42] the basis for that i mean [01:05:43] how long does death last three minutes [01:05:46] two seconds [01:05:47] no forever unlike diamonds which are not [01:05:50] really forever this is forever [01:05:52] the forever is from the perspective of [01:05:55] no one [01:05:56] that's correct that's and if death if [01:05:57] death lasts forever [01:05:59] that harm is accruing in the same place [01:06:01] or so i would [01:06:02] say as the harm of being deprived of the [01:06:05] benefits of a good life [01:06:07] no that's exactly where we're [01:06:09] disagreeing but [01:06:10] but in this in what you've just said you [01:06:13] i think you're saying multiple different [01:06:14] things [01:06:15] in other words at different points in in [01:06:16] in your exposition i thought you were [01:06:19] saying something different [01:06:21] so at first what i thought you were [01:06:22] saying was that it may be [01:06:24] that in the future lives will be [01:06:27] will be much much better than they are [01:06:29] now really nearly blissful lives because [01:06:32] we don't know how much the science will [01:06:33] progress [01:06:34] and uh how how good we can make a human [01:06:37] life [01:06:38] and my response to that is that not what [01:06:40] you were saying no no i i would say [01:06:42] that's [01:06:42] certainly possible yeah uh well my [01:06:45] response to that is that [01:06:47] even if that's true and i think that's [01:06:49] unduly optimistic i think that uh [01:06:52] bad things in life are going to [01:06:54] constantly evade [01:06:55] we evade our our treatment our therapy [01:06:58] so even if we cure cancer there'll be [01:07:00] something else that comes along that [01:07:01] will [01:07:01] then have to turn our attention to but [01:07:03] even if we set aside that and even if we [01:07:05] think that there is some [01:07:07] great condition that we can get into in [01:07:10] a hundred [01:07:10] thousand years time or even ten thousand [01:07:13] years time even a thousand years time [01:07:15] it's not clear to me that subjecting the [01:07:17] intervening people [01:07:19] to what we would be subjecting them to [01:07:21] could warrant that outcome [01:07:23] so let's imagine we were having this [01:07:24] conversation 20 000 years ago [01:07:28] where there was no anesthesia and uh [01:07:31] people had to have a leg amputated they [01:07:32] just cut it off perhaps they'd get a bit [01:07:34] of grog or something but uh [01:07:36] they they they'd be fully conscious [01:07:38] while they had their leg amputated or [01:07:40] they had [01:07:40] a tooth pulled and [01:07:44] the sam harris of the past said look you [01:07:46] know one day there'll be this great [01:07:47] thing that's called anesthesia and [01:07:48] people won't have to have that [01:07:50] won't have to go through these [01:07:51] experiences at least if they're in the [01:07:52] developed world and they've got access [01:07:53] to it [01:07:55] i'll say yeah but it's pretty indecent [01:07:57] to put the next [01:07:58] number of generations through what [01:07:59] they're going to go through to get to [01:08:02] that point [01:08:02] it's just not worth it what you do is [01:08:04] you pull their teeth while you [01:08:06] amputate their legs so as to distract [01:08:08] them [01:08:10] that's not what i would recommend so the [01:08:13] character of existence is the [01:08:17] coin that you are cashing [01:08:20] in here to to run this through [01:08:23] intuitively [01:08:24] the moment existence gets better and [01:08:26] better [01:08:28] the balance swings and and when it gets [01:08:30] worse and worse the balance swings in [01:08:32] the other direction [01:08:33] and i'm still hung up on a few places [01:08:35] where our [01:08:36] intuitions don't align and i guess it's [01:08:38] the collapse of anti-natalism into [01:08:40] pro-mortalism that [01:08:41] that i stuck on here it's just if you [01:08:44] told me that [01:08:46] i was going to get my leg sawed off [01:08:48] tomorrow [01:08:49] and every day thereafter that that's [01:08:51] what life was now going to be like [01:08:54] well then i can easily find a [01:08:57] means of death that is better than [01:08:59] getting my legs sawed off [01:09:01] the badness of death and the badness of [01:09:03] having my goals frustrated counts as [01:09:06] nothing [01:09:07] in light of that kind of existence i [01:09:10] don't think it counts as nothing i just [01:09:11] think [01:09:11] i think it gets defeated by the prospect [01:09:13] of having your leg cut off without [01:09:14] anesthesia [01:09:15] so if i had that prospect tomorrow yes i [01:09:17] would also rather die [01:09:19] but if i had the prospect of having my [01:09:20] leg cut off not just tomorrow perhaps [01:09:22] but i'm just saying that [01:09:23] you know every day for the rest of your [01:09:24] life yeah that too but let's imagine i [01:09:26] knew this leg cutting was only going to [01:09:28] start in 20 years time [01:09:30] then i might say well the badness of [01:09:31] death is going to keep me going in the [01:09:33] meantime and i'm going to stick it [01:09:34] around and when i get a little closer to [01:09:35] that leg cutting time [01:09:37] then the death would be welcome even [01:09:39] though it would still be an evil [01:09:41] it'll be the lesser of the evils i'm [01:09:43] granting the possibility [01:09:44] that i'm wrong about how death how bad [01:09:47] death is that [01:09:48] if i am wrong about that then i think we [01:09:50] should be pro-mortalists but not just [01:09:52] because we are anti-natalists i think we [01:09:54] should be pro-mortalists on other [01:09:55] grounds when we try and minimize the [01:09:57] the unfortunate side effects that you're [01:09:58] speaking about but i don't think i have [01:10:01] to uh [01:10:02] adopt pro-mortalism because i'm an [01:10:04] antenatalist and i think that the method [01:10:05] for voi [01:10:06] for for avoiding it is by saying that [01:10:09] death is a harm to the person who dies [01:10:12] or is bad for the person who dies [01:10:14] ways of doing that i've spoken about [01:10:16] annihilation you can speak about [01:10:17] deprivation there's the deprivation kind [01:10:19] of of death badness [01:10:21] that's another way of doing it you can [01:10:24] we can argue about [01:10:25] the merits of those different views of [01:10:27] the badness of death [01:10:28] but at least in the face of it there are [01:10:30] arguments that death [01:10:32] is bad even though there is nobody who [01:10:34] experiences that badness [01:10:36] and so i'm not sure whether we should [01:10:38] sort of get sidetracked by the debate [01:10:40] about death what we should i think [01:10:41] uh recognizes um there is a question [01:10:44] about that [01:10:45] and if you're right about death then my [01:10:47] anti-natalist view should commit me to [01:10:49] pro-mortalism [01:10:50] and i'm perfectly happy to acknowledge [01:10:52] that if on the other hand i'm right [01:10:54] about the question of death [01:10:55] then i am not committed to pro-mortalism [01:10:58] just because i'm an anti-natalist [01:11:00] okay yeah well yeah i i certainly don't [01:11:01] want to get bogged down here i guess [01:11:02] it's [01:11:03] i have the the hope that we can always [01:11:05] press through and and [01:11:07] find ourselves converging the optimist [01:11:09] but your pessimism may be [01:11:11] warranted here so i guess i just i'll [01:11:13] register [01:11:14] for the benefit of our listeners i'll [01:11:16] just register the the objections that [01:11:18] have [01:11:19] occurred to me thus far where i feel [01:11:21] like we we don't converge and one is [01:11:23] just on the initial architecture of this [01:11:26] first asymmetry this idea that [01:11:28] you can say that being deprived of [01:11:31] harms or being spared harms is a good [01:11:34] thing for one who doesn't exist [01:11:36] but you can't say that being deprived of [01:11:39] good things is a bad thing for one who [01:11:41] doesn't exist i think that initial [01:11:43] asymmetry which [01:11:44] is doing a lot of work for you not as [01:11:47] much as you think [01:11:48] yeah the truth is i don't actually think [01:11:50] you need it to have your view [01:11:51] but what you do need to have your view [01:11:54] and this is again this is where [01:11:55] your view sort of slides into the [01:11:57] pro-mortalism for me [01:11:58] what you do need is to have a judgment a [01:12:01] judgment [01:12:02] about the character of existence that is [01:12:04] pessimistic enough [01:12:06] to make it seem that life really isn't [01:12:10] worth living [01:12:11] not only for those who don't yet exist [01:12:14] but those who exist in this state of [01:12:16] mediocrity we [01:12:18] you know we call a podcast like the two [01:12:21] of us [01:12:22] should really again leaving aside [01:12:25] imposing misery on those who love us we [01:12:28] should really not just be [01:12:30] indifferent to not waking up tomorrow [01:12:34] we should hope it happens we should hope [01:12:36] it happens for everybody in some [01:12:37] painless way [01:12:39] so as to be spared the certain misery [01:12:42] that is [01:12:42] coming our way and the possible [01:12:46] horrific amplification of the misery [01:12:48] that is that is possible that you know [01:12:50] we're [01:12:50] that we're probably not even thinking [01:12:52] about what we're thinking about cancer [01:12:54] we're not thinking about surviving a [01:12:57] nuclear war [01:12:58] and having to live in some hellscape [01:13:00] that you know one [01:13:01] reads about in in history books or or [01:13:04] c's in [01:13:04] in dystopian movies but all of that's on [01:13:07] on the menu too right or at least [01:13:09] potentially look the miseries i'm [01:13:11] expecting tomorrow are not so bad that i [01:13:13] would rather be dead [01:13:15] at least the ones i'm expecting that [01:13:18] might not be true down the line [01:13:19] okay but but david let's just focus [01:13:21] there so if that's how you feel about [01:13:24] tomorrow for you [01:13:26] and i hand you your newborn baby [01:13:29] how is it that you wouldn't feel the [01:13:31] same sort of default [01:13:32] optimism for the prospects of your baby [01:13:36] enjoying tomorrow but that's a being [01:13:39] that already exists and this is why [01:13:40] we're coming back [01:13:41] to i think this fundamental disagreement [01:13:43] between us you keep speaking about the [01:13:46] life that's worth living and that [01:13:47] doesn't lie the difference between a [01:13:49] life worth starting and the life worth [01:13:50] continuing [01:13:51] if i had a baby in front of me i would [01:13:53] not kill it for its sake [01:13:55] you would think it would be better that [01:13:56] it had not been born [01:13:58] better that it not being born but that's [01:14:00] different to say that it's better for it [01:14:02] to now die [01:14:03] we're sort of disagreeing about just [01:14:05] just what the space [01:14:06] provided is in order to put that [01:14:08] difference but yeah it depends on how [01:14:10] bad death is [01:14:11] and you've you don't think it's bad if [01:14:14] you avoid all those confounding [01:14:15] variables [01:14:16] and i think that even if we avoid all of [01:14:18] those it is bad [01:14:20] and if as i say if i'm wrong about that [01:14:23] and you're right [01:14:24] then promortalism is exactly the right [01:14:26] view to adopt [01:14:27] if on the other hand i'm right about the [01:14:28] death question and you're wrong then [01:14:30] there's a way of avoiding the move from [01:14:32] anti-natalism to pro-immortalism i can't [01:14:35] find a shelf to place this [01:14:37] this highly negative value but let's [01:14:40] just [01:14:40] stipulate that such a shelf exists [01:14:43] you're not thinking about that [01:14:45] as a reason not to die tonight you're [01:14:47] thinking about the fact that [01:14:49] tomorrow could be a very good day or a [01:14:54] normal [01:14:54] a normal not too bad day right [01:14:57] when i when i think about not dying and [01:15:00] i think many people when they think [01:15:01] about [01:15:01] about their prospective deaths they [01:15:03] don't want to be annihilated [01:15:05] and they they prepare to accept a lot of [01:15:07] things to avoid that bad [01:15:10] but when they think about being [01:15:11] annihilated they think about [01:15:13] again all of the the ancillary things [01:15:16] that we have [01:15:16] left off the table and are right to [01:15:18] leave off the table i don't think it's [01:15:19] just that [01:15:20] i don't think it's just that but again [01:15:21] there is this paradox that people [01:15:23] imagine death being this terrifying [01:15:26] thing again leaving aside [01:15:27] the pain of the the means of death and [01:15:31] all of that suffering but just in the [01:15:32] moment people [01:15:34] think they're afraid to lose experience [01:15:37] they think they're afraid to have [01:15:39] the lights go out they think they're [01:15:40] afraid to be suddenly deprived [01:15:43] of seeing hearing smelling tasting [01:15:45] touching thinking [01:15:46] feeling and the discursive mind that [01:15:50] would allow them to entertain their [01:15:51] goals and [01:15:52] and their ability to remember who they [01:15:54] are and all the rest [01:15:55] but we do that every single night of our [01:15:59] lives [01:15:59] that we fall asleep and when we can't do [01:16:01] that for some reason when you're [01:16:03] suffering from [01:16:04] insomnia you know you're struggling to [01:16:06] get to sleep you're just [01:16:07] you're waiting for the lights to go out [01:16:09] and they won't go out [01:16:10] that becomes its own agony we surrender [01:16:14] to sleep [01:16:15] as though to one of the greatest [01:16:17] pleasures [01:16:18] we ever encounter once we get exhausted [01:16:21] enough because we expect to wake up [01:16:23] well we do but but our our surrender [01:16:25] isn't contingent [01:16:27] upon our reiterating to ourselves [01:16:31] that we will wake up you know we're not [01:16:33] saying i know this seems crazy the [01:16:35] lights are going to [01:16:36] go out but i i you know i have it on [01:16:37] good authority i'm going to wake up [01:16:39] tomorrow and be able to [01:16:40] to live another day we don't think about [01:16:42] that at all we just we just [01:16:44] i mean just think of what it's like to [01:16:46] fall asleep in the general case [01:16:48] it just happens to you and you don't [01:16:49] know what the hell happened and all of a [01:16:50] sudden you're [01:16:51] you're waking up but when you're [01:16:54] struggling [01:16:55] to get there you can feel that what you [01:16:57] want is [01:16:58] for experience of the normal kind to [01:17:01] just go [01:17:02] away right you don't want to keep [01:17:03] hearing what you're hearing or thinking [01:17:05] what you're thinking [01:17:06] and so people yearn for it death [01:17:09] obviously is not the same thing as sleep [01:17:11] but [01:17:12] it could have i would imagine [01:17:15] in the context of an ordinary death with [01:17:18] all the suffering that tends to surround [01:17:20] it [01:17:20] it could have very much that character [01:17:22] where you're just [01:17:23] i mean just you're on the on the the [01:17:25] event horizon of some [01:17:27] profound relief from sensory experience [01:17:31] and surrender to that could feel [01:17:34] quite good and appropriate i don't deny [01:17:37] that [01:17:38] that death has its jobs there are [01:17:39] certain advantages to it [01:17:42] what i'm saying is it's also got serious [01:17:44] downsides [01:17:45] and that's the point that we're just [01:17:46] agreeing on i think we can move on here [01:17:49] i just i can't figure out where to put [01:17:51] those downsides but [01:17:52] i mean maybe there's you know i'm living [01:17:54] in a three-dimensional [01:17:55] moral universe and there's a fourth [01:17:57] dimension and you found it [01:17:59] and yet you can't point forward backward [01:18:02] left or right or up or down to indicate [01:18:04] it to me but [01:18:05] wherever that place is you have to put [01:18:08] an enormous downside [01:18:10] in order to swing the balance in favor [01:18:13] of [01:18:13] continuing to learn i agree i agree [01:18:15] about that okay [01:18:16] it has to be an enormous downside and i [01:18:18] happen to think that it is [01:18:19] at least we understand our confusion at [01:18:22] that point [01:18:23] i think we both agree that people to use [01:18:27] philosophical jargon here that people [01:18:29] aren't subjectively incorrigible which [01:18:31] is to say people [01:18:32] aren't perfect authorities about [01:18:35] anything even about the character of [01:18:37] their own experience so a person can be [01:18:40] you know rather bad at judging how happy [01:18:42] he is or you know a person can think [01:18:44] that he loves his wife and kids [01:18:47] more or less all the time but he can be [01:18:49] wildly wrong about how often he actually [01:18:51] feels love or [01:18:53] his love so people aren't perfect judges [01:18:56] of [01:18:56] of whether their lives are good in any [01:18:58] way necessarily [01:19:00] but there's this paradox that that [01:19:01] people can become [01:19:03] both better judges of of what's going on [01:19:06] and [01:19:07] their judgments can in fact be a factor [01:19:09] in [01:19:10] dictating the quality of their life [01:19:13] judgments you know whether veritable or [01:19:15] not [01:19:16] can change how one feels in each moment [01:19:19] and [01:19:19] and life can get much better or worse [01:19:22] depending on how one [01:19:23] pays attention to what it's like to be [01:19:26] you [01:19:28] on some level where we have to take [01:19:31] people's word [01:19:32] and people have to take their own word [01:19:34] for [01:19:36] how good or bad life is or how worth it [01:19:38] it is or was to go through [01:19:40] periods of suffering how do you think [01:19:43] about that there are people who will [01:19:44] tell you obviously it's a very common [01:19:45] experience [01:19:46] that they've gone through something that [01:19:48] seems objectively terrible or or it [01:19:51] would be [01:19:52] something they would be genuinely [01:19:54] terrified to endure [01:19:56] had you told them it was going to happen [01:19:57] to them but going through the experience [01:20:00] they are empowered by it they feel like [01:20:03] it has brought [01:20:04] greater meaning to their life they have [01:20:06] new capacities that they didn't imagine [01:20:08] that they would ever have how do you [01:20:10] view those [01:20:11] chapters in life like that in light of [01:20:13] what you're saying [01:20:14] well i think you're correct that people [01:20:17] are not [01:20:18] reliable judges of the of their own [01:20:20] quality of life [01:20:21] but there are all kinds of ways in which [01:20:22] people can can er i also think you're [01:20:24] correct that [01:20:26] the view you do hold can form a kind of [01:20:29] feedback loop [01:20:30] into the quality of your life so that if [01:20:32] you think that the quality of your life [01:20:34] is better than it actually is it [01:20:35] actually becomes a bit better than it [01:20:37] actually would otherwise have been if [01:20:38] you didn't have that attitude [01:20:39] right but it doesn't mean that your view [01:20:42] becomes completely correct it's just [01:20:43] that [01:20:44] uh your life sort of alters in the [01:20:46] direction of your perception [01:20:48] so i think all of that is true and i [01:20:49] think it's also true that people [01:20:51] do try to find meaning in the unpleasant [01:20:54] features of life [01:20:55] they try to benefit in some way from [01:20:58] from the suffering and the other bad [01:20:59] experiences and the other misfortunes [01:21:01] that they [01:21:02] that they suffer and i think that's all [01:21:04] to the good it's [01:21:05] it's good if somebody can try to [01:21:08] harvest some good out of that bad but [01:21:11] none of that i think would justify the [01:21:13] infliction of the [01:21:14] of the bad in the in the first place if [01:21:16] you think for example about [01:21:18] i don't know a rape victim who [01:21:21] does something empowering as a result of [01:21:23] that awful experience [01:21:24] and finds some kind of meaning in life [01:21:27] through that by perhaps helping other [01:21:28] victims of this sort of assault [01:21:31] it's good that they can derive some some [01:21:34] solace as it were [01:21:35] but that wouldn't warrant in any way the [01:21:38] infliction of that sort of [01:21:40] act on on them in the first place and i [01:21:42] would say something similar about [01:21:43] bringing somebody into existence if you [01:21:45] bring them into existence and they find [01:21:47] meaning and they seek purpose and they [01:21:50] they try to see the good in life that's [01:21:52] all great but it doesn't mean that you [01:21:54] were warranted in the first place in [01:21:55] creating them [01:21:57] you are making a judgment about the [01:21:58] character of existence [01:22:00] and you're you're making a kind of [01:22:01] vicarious judgment [01:22:03] for others you're surveying you know [01:22:06] what the careers of various people have [01:22:07] been like [01:22:08] from birth to death and you're assuming [01:22:11] you know what it's like to [01:22:13] or something some semblance of what it's [01:22:15] like to live all those [01:22:17] lives and endure all those experiences [01:22:19] and that's how you're coming to this [01:22:20] view [01:22:21] of the value of existence i think [01:22:24] there's no way around that that you're [01:22:26] you're making a judgment and we know [01:22:28] we're bad at making these judgments both [01:22:30] for ourselves and presumably [01:22:31] we're bad at doing it for others and so [01:22:34] this a lot of this comes out of [01:22:35] behavioral economics we know that people [01:22:38] overestimate the durable effects of both [01:22:41] good and bad experiences so like if i [01:22:43] told you you know you would have to [01:22:44] spend [01:22:45] the rest of your life as a paraplegic [01:22:48] you would very likely if you're a normal [01:22:50] person [01:22:51] have a a far too pessimistic view [01:22:54] of what the effect would be on your [01:22:57] happiness [01:22:57] of that change in your life there's this [01:23:00] initial [01:23:01] terrible degradation of your happiness [01:23:03] but what tends to happen is people [01:23:05] become you know more or less [01:23:06] as happy as they've always been once [01:23:08] they get their act together [01:23:10] for most things this is true of you know [01:23:12] almost every [01:23:14] terrible thing that people recover from [01:23:16] in some basic sense [01:23:18] so we're bad judges of of that but i can [01:23:21] imagine [01:23:22] i could just imagine if if you could [01:23:24] take a poll of [01:23:25] every person who's ever existed on their [01:23:28] deathbed and ask them [01:23:30] two questions you ask them do you regret [01:23:33] having existed [01:23:34] and you know would you want to do this [01:23:37] again [01:23:38] would you want a second chance at a life [01:23:40] very much like the one you lived [01:23:43] it seems to me that's the the only sort [01:23:45] of exhaustive sampling of [01:23:46] of the the information space we could [01:23:49] have [01:23:50] and i would expect those polls to run [01:23:53] very much counter to what you're [01:23:54] suggesting here and again i [01:23:56] i think it's coherent to say that [01:23:57] everyone could be wrong on some level [01:23:59] here but i would expect people to say [01:24:02] i'm glad i lived [01:24:03] and i would like to continue living or [01:24:06] to live another life [01:24:08] i feel like that's probably where most [01:24:11] people like apart from the people who [01:24:12] just suffered [01:24:13] the worst possible lives i feel like [01:24:16] most people even people who had [01:24:18] classically hard lives would say that do [01:24:21] you have a different intuition there [01:24:23] no i think you're correct uh probably [01:24:25] not as often as you think [01:24:26] because i've i've known at least some [01:24:28] people who [01:24:30] have found my views to be correct when [01:24:33] they've reached that point in their life [01:24:36] where the suffering is just unspeakable [01:24:38] and they think at that point [01:24:39] nothing is worth what i'm going through [01:24:41] now but i wouldn't be surprised if [01:24:44] uh more people a majority of people had [01:24:46] your response but i would still distrust [01:24:48] that [01:24:49] and uh i was i think what's going on is [01:24:52] a kind of [01:24:53] adaptation a kind of adaptive preference [01:24:55] even so people find themselves in [01:24:58] existence and now they try to [01:25:00] rationalize this in some way and they [01:25:02] adapt to their circumstances [01:25:04] so let's imagine you you showed me [01:25:07] slaves who were happy to be slaves and [01:25:09] they were born into slavery and they [01:25:10] said look i i want [01:25:12] to i'm i'm glad i was born even though i [01:25:14] was born a slave [01:25:15] i think i would still offer the advice [01:25:17] that you would not be breeding more [01:25:18] slaves [01:25:19] even though they reassured me that they [01:25:21] were happy i'd say don't do it [01:25:23] don't bring more in not a good idea well [01:25:26] again that's just by comparison with the [01:25:29] the free state [01:25:30] of non-slaves that we we value more but [01:25:35] i view all of human existence as [01:25:37] analogous to [01:25:38] some form of slavery by comparison if we [01:25:41] compare our lives at present with [01:25:43] the unimaginably good lives that are [01:25:45] possible [01:25:46] for beings like ourselves then we are [01:25:48] you know we're the [01:25:49] the worst form of slaves no doubt but it [01:25:52] still doesn't [01:25:52] cause me to say that these lives aren't [01:25:54] worth living and [01:25:56] one of the reasons why they might be [01:25:57] worth living to [01:25:59] people other than ourselves are the are [01:26:02] our descendants who [01:26:04] could live in a much better world than [01:26:05] the one we're living in [01:26:07] i don't think that hundreds of [01:26:08] generations of [01:26:10] of enslavement is is worth it even if [01:26:13] the outcome [01:26:14] is going to be eventual freedom for some [01:26:16] future generation [01:26:18] what if we live in a world where you [01:26:20] know we've had [01:26:21] you know there's now seven billion [01:26:22] people alive [01:26:24] i forget what the estimates are i think [01:26:26] it's it's about 106 billion i think [01:26:29] yeah as i recall that have ever lived of [01:26:31] course the calculations [01:26:33] vary depending on when you think humans [01:26:34] started right [01:26:36] and what counts is it i've heard the the [01:26:38] same number of about 100 billion so [01:26:40] let's say there's been a hundred billion [01:26:42] homo sapiens thus far and seven billion [01:26:46] are currently alive if we're going to [01:26:48] become [01:26:49] a species or a line of future species of [01:26:52] you know [01:26:53] space-faring unimaginably advanced [01:26:57] beings who you know take full creative [01:27:00] control over their evolution [01:27:02] that seems possible if we don't do [01:27:05] something incredibly stupid in the [01:27:06] meantime i mean really [01:27:07] if it feels like we we have a like a [01:27:09] hundred year bottleneck here that we [01:27:11] have to get through [01:27:12] in order to have the most star trek in [01:27:16] sort of future a hundred billion is is [01:27:19] like nothing [01:27:20] compared to the the billions upon [01:27:22] billions upon billions that may yet [01:27:24] exist [01:27:25] to live lives that are good enough [01:27:28] so that they look back on us the way we [01:27:30] look back on [01:27:31] the poor cavemen and women who um [01:27:35] you know were struggling to start fires [01:27:37] and and [01:27:38] not cannibalize one another well [01:27:40] obviously you and i are looking back at [01:27:41] those [01:27:42] those cave dwellers very differently [01:27:45] because i'm sorry they reproduced [01:27:48] and there's nothing i can put on the [01:27:49] balance in the future [01:27:51] that seems to make anyone's sacrifice [01:27:54] worth enduring well let me ask you this [01:27:58] let's imagine that you knew that your [01:28:00] children [01:28:01] and your grandchildren that saying you [01:28:03] and your great-grandchildren [01:28:04] would suffer unspeakably such that [01:28:08] so that but then the subsequent [01:28:10] generations will all have blissful lives [01:28:14] would you would you breed the next [01:28:16] generation i mean they've done it [01:28:17] already but if you could go back and [01:28:20] make the decision would you do that if [01:28:21] you knew the next few generations would [01:28:22] suffer unspeakably [01:28:24] and that was the cost that had to be [01:28:25] paid in order to yield some massive [01:28:27] benefit for some future people with whom [01:28:29] you've got no [01:28:30] direct contact would you do it [01:28:33] because i think there's something [01:28:34] indecent about that well [01:28:36] it is a difficult question especially if [01:28:39] you [01:28:40] turn the suffering up high enough then [01:28:42] it becomes something that [01:28:43] that i feel like i could never impose on [01:28:46] somebody else against their will [01:28:47] that's exactly my view and i think the [01:28:50] suffering is pretty high you don't have [01:28:51] to look at it on a day-to-day basis [01:28:53] look at it over the course of somebody's [01:28:55] lifespan [01:28:56] there's a lot of suffering there that [01:28:58] you're inflicting [01:28:59] and and also the risk of of suffering [01:29:03] i mean i think the risk is even [01:29:04] sufficient but the crucial difference [01:29:06] here is that it is suffering [01:29:07] that in most cases or at least in the [01:29:09] case that i could foresee by procreating [01:29:12] is suffering that the person themself [01:29:15] once they become [01:29:17] as adequate as i am to judge the [01:29:19] character of their own lives [01:29:21] the person him or herself will say i [01:29:24] want more of this [01:29:25] i'm happy to be here i'm you know what [01:29:27] do you want to get for lunch [01:29:29] well first of all there are a lot of [01:29:30] people of whom that's not true there are [01:29:32] a lot of depressive people out there [01:29:33] there are a lot of people [01:29:35] who are suicidal that's true and you've [01:29:37] got to think about you've got to think [01:29:38] about the parents who bred those [01:29:40] children [01:29:41] but the ethical decision here is if you [01:29:43] could foresee the fact [01:29:45] that you your children would be [01:29:47] miserable you know [01:29:48] unendurably miserable and never recover [01:29:51] well then of course [01:29:52] you would have some kind of ethical duty [01:29:54] not to procreate [01:29:56] i fully agree there but i mean so the [01:29:58] situation you're asking me to consider [01:30:00] is [01:30:00] kind of analogous to your saying that if [01:30:02] i knew that i could just torture someone [01:30:05] in a dungeon [01:30:06] just one person for you know 50 years [01:30:10] and this would bring about some great [01:30:12] benefit elsewhere [01:30:13] you'd have millions of happy people if [01:30:16] only i would torture this one person in [01:30:18] my basement [01:30:19] would i do that it's very difficult for [01:30:21] me to say yes [01:30:23] to that given the details but i would [01:30:26] say that we actually [01:30:27] do say yes to that by default [01:30:30] in other ways that no one has to own [01:30:32] just by organizing [01:30:34] a world that is as inequitable as it is [01:30:37] i mean you know the fact that [01:30:39] we participate in an economy that leaves [01:30:42] some people living lives that are [01:30:44] that you know one would argue are just [01:30:46] barely worth living so as to produce [01:30:49] the goods we all enjoy and then discard [01:30:51] i mean that's [01:30:52] their inequalities in our world that are [01:30:54] glaring enough [01:30:55] that we all are sort of allowing people [01:30:58] to be tortured in our basements [01:31:00] for nothing like the benefit that you [01:31:02] you are suggesting [01:31:04] but if you spell it out too clearly it [01:31:05] becomes insupportable once you [01:31:08] ask me to do the torturing right but [01:31:10] even if i'm not asking you to do the [01:31:12] torturing directly [01:31:14] but i'm asking you to think about the [01:31:15] the suffering that that will occur [01:31:18] and i think if you think carefully about [01:31:19] that you should say i would not to do it [01:31:22] i i'm speaking now about the future [01:31:24] people case because the case you've [01:31:26] provided is more complicated because [01:31:28] you're going to talk to one person in [01:31:29] order to bring some benefit to already [01:31:30] existing people [01:31:32] right right and so it's maybe some [01:31:34] people will think that can be justified [01:31:37] but even if you think that can be [01:31:38] justified i don't think that's going to [01:31:40] imply anything for the case i'm [01:31:42] imagining where [01:31:44] you're going to inflict pain and [01:31:45] suffering on these beings in order to [01:31:48] ensure that they are future people who [01:31:50] will have these blissful lives [01:31:52] and that if you didn't inflict this pain [01:31:53] and suffering then the [01:31:55] those future people the blissful lives [01:31:56] wouldn't exist so i will grant you [01:31:59] totally that if i expect my children [01:32:02] to have lives that are not worth living [01:32:05] it becomes ethically problematic to [01:32:07] bring them into existence [01:32:09] even if we can imagine that they stand a [01:32:12] chance of having children [01:32:14] who would have better lives and that my [01:32:16] descendants could then kind of climb [01:32:18] out of this well of suffering i've [01:32:20] prepared for them [01:32:21] but what i'm expecting and certainly [01:32:24] what most people expect when they have [01:32:25] kids if they think about this at all [01:32:28] are people very much like themselves [01:32:31] who have lives that they want to [01:32:34] maintain the moment they find themselves [01:32:35] in existence [01:32:36] right so that they're having they're [01:32:38] having lives that seem intrinsically [01:32:41] worth preserving at least most of the [01:32:43] time [01:32:44] so we're not in the situation of [01:32:47] consciously imposing [01:32:49] immeasurable suffering on future [01:32:52] generations [01:32:53] that is never compensated by a life [01:32:56] worth living [01:32:56] but you're telling me about the [01:32:58] psychology of people right and i'm [01:33:00] saying we need to look beyond the [01:33:01] psychology of people because if [01:33:02] people are just adapting to their [01:33:04] circumstances [01:33:06] and they're thinking well on balanced [01:33:07] i'd rather be here [01:33:10] if that's an unreliable judgment then we [01:33:12] shouldn't use those judgments that [01:33:13] they're making as a basis for [01:33:15] reproducing or producing more people who [01:33:17] will suffer quite terrible things [01:33:19] except the only basis for making this [01:33:22] judgment [01:33:22] ever is the psychology of everyone [01:33:27] who can be asked this question is life [01:33:30] worth living [01:33:31] and again when we have we have ways of [01:33:33] triangulating on [01:33:34] self-deception and adaptation and all of [01:33:37] that [01:33:38] but you know even in your own case so [01:33:40] you're bringing all of your powers of [01:33:42] philosophical self-awareness to bear on [01:33:45] the question of whether your life is [01:33:46] worth living [01:33:48] you know you might be deceived about it [01:33:51] to some degree i mean [01:33:52] let's say you go on vacation and i ask [01:33:54] you you know how [01:33:55] how was your vacation to rome and you [01:33:58] say oh [01:33:59] it was great and then i you know we we [01:34:01] have a more searching [01:34:02] conversation than that and it begins to [01:34:05] seem that you know your time in rome was [01:34:07] you know dogged by [01:34:08] jet lag and and other forms of [01:34:11] dissatisfaction that that make it seem [01:34:13] like [01:34:14] in retrospect not as good as you [01:34:16] recalled at first [01:34:17] so we know that you're not subjectively [01:34:19] incorrigible either but you're still [01:34:21] making this judgment about the character [01:34:23] of existence [01:34:24] we're not getting out of our psychology [01:34:26] for this we're talking about [01:34:28] the character of of human experience [01:34:30] what would you say about the slave case [01:34:33] first i could certainly imagine a happy [01:34:34] slave that's not a non-sequitur or [01:34:37] that's not a [01:34:38] an oxymoron well i know let's let's put [01:34:40] it this way no [01:34:41] no i know what you mean by happy slave [01:34:42] but let's imagine you've got somebody [01:34:44] who's enslaved they're subjected to a [01:34:46] certain amount of of brutality there's [01:34:48] piles of unpleasantness in their life [01:34:49] but when you ask them are you glad that [01:34:52] you came into existence [01:34:54] and they answered yes and would you now [01:34:56] use that datum [01:34:58] as part of a justification for [01:35:02] breeding further slaves would live in [01:35:04] those sorts of circumstances [01:35:06] again we can't smuggle in too much under [01:35:08] the rubric of slavery i mean slavery [01:35:11] is only slavery when you can imagine [01:35:14] some alternative [01:35:15] form of freedom that others enjoy or [01:35:18] that is [01:35:18] easily attainable right but i'm [01:35:20] presenting that case to you because you [01:35:22] need to think about a scenario where you [01:35:24] can think about the alternatives and [01:35:25] think about them quite vividly [01:35:27] yeah but i'm just saying that again it [01:35:29] doesn't [01:35:30] do so much work for me because i you [01:35:32] know i think [01:35:34] our current circumstance is is slavery [01:35:36] by by some other [01:35:38] metric right clearly human life [01:35:41] could be reliably bad enough so that we [01:35:44] would say [01:35:45] there's really no point in it the [01:35:48] character of [01:35:50] of experience is what really matters to [01:35:52] me and i would argue it's really the [01:35:53] only thing that can matter to anyone who [01:35:56] exists to have things matter at all [01:35:59] all we have is consciousness and its [01:36:01] contents [01:36:02] as a place in which to locate you know [01:36:04] value [01:36:06] so that is another assumption and [01:36:08] there'd be a lot of people who disagree [01:36:09] with that assumption [01:36:11] i hesitated to go down that path but [01:36:12] i've never heard a coherent [01:36:14] utterance that pretended to be a [01:36:16] disagreement to that assumption i mean [01:36:17] or at least it never seemed coherent to [01:36:19] me [01:36:19] if you're if you're going to tell me [01:36:20] that there's something that's [01:36:23] extraordinarily important and valuable [01:36:26] and it would be a moral wrong [01:36:30] to destroy this thing but this thing [01:36:33] has no experience in and of itself it's [01:36:36] not a mind and [01:36:38] there is no conscious mind actual or [01:36:41] potential that will ever experience this [01:36:43] thing [01:36:43] right this is a corner of the universe [01:36:44] that is dark and will be [01:36:47] forever unexplored and has no effect on [01:36:50] anything [01:36:51] else in the universe so it's completely [01:36:53] isolated [01:36:54] but it is nevertheless incredibly [01:36:56] important and [01:36:58] we should care about it that's like a [01:37:00] you know a square circle [01:37:01] that is a a logically impossible thing [01:37:05] given the way i define these terms the [01:37:07] only reservoir of value [01:37:09] is the actual or potential change [01:37:13] in the experience of some conscious [01:37:15] system [01:37:16] we're talking about subjective [01:37:18] non-existence we're talking about beings [01:37:20] who don't exist [01:37:21] in the space they need to exist in order [01:37:23] to enjoy or suffer any change in the [01:37:26] universe [01:37:27] so you would go on the experience [01:37:29] machine and you'd think that people who [01:37:31] wouldn't are just confused [01:37:33] so let's remind people or or inform them [01:37:35] about what the experience [01:37:37] machine is do you want to prop up that [01:37:39] thought experiment [01:37:40] sure it's an ex thought experiment of [01:37:42] robert nozick and he imagines the [01:37:43] scenario where you get offered the [01:37:45] opportunity to be plugged into [01:37:47] this experience machine when you're on [01:37:49] the experience machine [01:37:50] you're not aware that you're on it you [01:37:52] think that this is real life [01:37:55] and in advance of going on the machine [01:37:57] you could choose whichever experiences [01:37:59] you want to have for the rest of your [01:38:01] biological life [01:38:02] you then get attached to the machine to [01:38:04] get put to sleep and get fed these [01:38:06] experiences [01:38:07] because you've chosen them presumably [01:38:09] you would have chosen just positive [01:38:10] experiences or [01:38:11] maximize the number of positive [01:38:13] experiences that you can have [01:38:15] and the question is if offered this [01:38:17] choice would you go on the machine or [01:38:19] would you not [01:38:20] and most people who are offered this [01:38:23] choice [01:38:24] don't want to go on the machine there's [01:38:26] some of course who do but but most [01:38:27] say they would decline the machine this [01:38:30] is a very interesting thought experiment [01:38:31] for [01:38:32] reasons that i think nozick couldn't [01:38:34] fully anticipate [01:38:35] i think this experiment is aging better [01:38:38] and better and it is becoming [01:38:40] more and more interesting given the [01:38:41] prospect of ai [01:38:43] and you know recent quirky arguments in [01:38:46] philosophy you know the simulation [01:38:48] argument of [01:38:48] nick bostrom however seriously one takes [01:38:51] the prospect that we could be living in [01:38:53] an experienced machine already [01:38:55] it's certainly less crazy than it would [01:38:57] have been when [01:38:58] nausic wrote his book but i have a few [01:39:01] intuitions here that [01:39:02] i don't totally trust and i i think what [01:39:06] what happens here is it when people [01:39:08] recoil from the idea of [01:39:10] being in the experience machine i guess [01:39:12] a more modern version of this is the [01:39:14] matrix [01:39:15] they smuggle in as as they do on many of [01:39:18] these other questions [01:39:19] we're touching they smuggle in some [01:39:21] associated [01:39:22] concerns that really are not intrinsic [01:39:25] to it you know or that you have to [01:39:26] hold to the side to actually think about [01:39:29] it so for instance people [01:39:30] care whether they're in touch with [01:39:32] reality [01:39:33] right and then you can ask you know why [01:39:34] do you care about that [01:39:36] it seems to promise the difference [01:39:37] between a fake experience and a real [01:39:39] experience [01:39:40] or a justified form of well-being and an [01:39:43] unjustified [01:39:44] form of well-being and those [01:39:46] distinctions [01:39:48] break down or certainly can break down [01:39:52] the more you analyze our our [01:39:54] entanglement with reality in the first [01:39:56] place [01:39:57] the one part of the experience machine [01:39:58] that would trouble me [01:40:00] that i think we could get over i mean [01:40:03] which we could just [01:40:04] fundamentally change is the issue of [01:40:07] being [01:40:08] of not being actually in relationship [01:40:10] with other conscious minds [01:40:12] one version of the experience machine [01:40:14] would be you're essentially in a dream [01:40:16] state [01:40:16] you know where you're however pleasant [01:40:18] the dream the people you meet the people [01:40:21] you're in relationship to [01:40:23] you know they could be the most [01:40:24] interesting people you've ever met and [01:40:25] the most beautiful people and you have [01:40:27] these [01:40:27] incredibly rewarding relationships but [01:40:29] in reality [01:40:31] they're zombies you know or they're you [01:40:33] know they're avatars [01:40:34] they're figments of code and you're not [01:40:37] actually in relationship with anybody [01:40:39] right so the falsity of that [01:40:40] circumstance matters to people [01:40:42] but of course the matrix need not be [01:40:45] like that [01:40:46] these could be you know artificial [01:40:48] intelligences that [01:40:50] actually are conscious right so you [01:40:51] could be in a [01:40:53] simulated world populated by conscious [01:40:56] beings that are [01:40:57] every bit as conscious as they seem and [01:40:59] are indistinguishable from [01:41:01] biological people as far as their [01:41:02] experience goes so that that [01:41:04] changes things or could change things [01:41:06] massively for people [01:41:08] the uncanniness of the experience [01:41:10] machine isn't going to get me to balk [01:41:12] here i really i do think [01:41:14] consciousness is the reservoir of value [01:41:19] the the only reasons why the experienced [01:41:22] machine would be undesirable from my [01:41:24] point of view would have to be things [01:41:27] that would be a matter of conscious [01:41:30] thoughts and attitudes and [01:41:32] associations that i would have that [01:41:34] would diminish the quality of that [01:41:36] experience so [01:41:37] i just gave you one you know this [01:41:39] beautiful woman who you think you're [01:41:40] married to [01:41:41] in the experience machine is in fact [01:41:44] just a [01:41:45] a confection of ones and zeros that [01:41:48] some evil genius has created for you for [01:41:51] your for your amusement you're not [01:41:52] actually in relationship well then that [01:41:54] that matters to me given all of the the [01:41:57] dominoes [01:41:58] that start falling in the negative [01:42:00] direction you know the moment i have to [01:42:02] take that on board and realize that you [01:42:04] know everything isn't as it seems [01:42:06] right so i was just wanting to clarify [01:42:07] your position i don't think it's [01:42:09] profitable for us to go down and examine [01:42:11] whether this is [01:42:12] the correct view or not but i think your [01:42:14] view is more controversial than you [01:42:16] would [01:42:16] than you would recognize and there are [01:42:18] some people who [01:42:20] who do find the experience machine to be [01:42:23] good evidence that it's not just [01:42:24] conscious states that that matter [01:42:27] it's actual and potential conscious [01:42:29] states so like one of the reasons why [01:42:31] it's good to be in touch with reality [01:42:33] or so i would say is that reality [01:42:36] matters [01:42:37] whether you're aware of it or not right [01:42:39] reality is what's there [01:42:41] determining the future state of your [01:42:44] conscious experience [01:42:45] and it's a thing you're going to bump [01:42:47] into in the dark [01:42:48] when you're unaware of the terrain and [01:42:50] so all things being equal [01:42:53] you want to have your beliefs about your [01:42:56] circumstance [01:42:57] to be in in some register with with your [01:42:59] actual circumstance because [01:43:02] you know that's the only thing that's [01:43:03] going to going to spare you [01:43:04] extraordinarily unpleasant surprises [01:43:07] we have this bias and i think it's a [01:43:08] well-founded one against being [01:43:10] delusional however pleasant the [01:43:12] delusions could be but [01:43:15] there is some construal of our current [01:43:18] circumstance which [01:43:19] does reveal it to be a kind of [01:43:21] experience [01:43:23] there's a dreamlike quality i mean even [01:43:25] just speaking you know just [01:43:26] neurologically [01:43:27] where is our experience coming from what [01:43:29] is your brain doing [01:43:31] to produce it and you know how much of [01:43:32] the real world is getting in [01:43:34] we are having a kind of controlled [01:43:38] hallucination [01:43:39] much of the time you one could even say [01:43:41] all of the time [01:43:42] and given our [01:43:46] growing capacity to change ourselves [01:43:49] with our technology [01:43:50] the moment we start hooking our brains [01:43:52] directly to [01:43:53] computers and having something like [01:43:56] virtual reality [01:43:58] piped in directly then we [01:44:01] this experience machine is coming [01:44:03] whether we like it or not [01:44:05] i worry i've distracted you all i want [01:44:07] to do is flag what i'd look to be a [01:44:09] somewhat controversial assumption [01:44:11] and i worry we've gone down the line we [01:44:12] perhaps shouldn't go down i think it is [01:44:14] interesting [01:44:15] it is interesting that it is our [01:44:16] listeners can tell us whether we just [01:44:18] bore them to death and [01:44:19] ruin their experience machine that can [01:44:21] reprogram [01:44:23] so what does your view do to [01:44:26] considerations of population ethics [01:44:29] which [01:44:30] are these long-standing problems in [01:44:33] moral philosophy which i've tried to [01:44:35] think about [01:44:36] i wrote a little bit about derrick [01:44:38] parfit in [01:44:39] at least two of my books the moral [01:44:41] landscape and and waking up [01:44:43] parfait has some great thought [01:44:45] experiments about [01:44:46] the paradoxes of thinking [01:44:50] about aggregate well-being you know how [01:44:52] do we summarize the well-being of [01:44:54] billions of people and [01:44:56] he has an especially famous thought [01:44:58] experiment [01:44:59] titled the repugnant conclusion do you [01:45:01] think the anti-natalist view [01:45:03] extends our ability to resolve some of [01:45:06] these paradoxes [01:45:07] i do indeed i think that many of those [01:45:10] population problems can really [01:45:12] be dissolved if you accept my arguments [01:45:15] let's spend a little time there because [01:45:16] people find this this area fascinating [01:45:19] well i mean first of all there's the [01:45:21] there's the non-identity problem [01:45:24] and that is the problem about whether [01:45:26] you could harm somebody by bringing them [01:45:27] into existence and [01:45:30] they're different versions of that [01:45:31] problem but i suppose the most acute [01:45:33] version is when [01:45:35] you think that the life that is started [01:45:38] is a life that's worth living [01:45:40] and so the question is let's imagine you [01:45:41] could either conceive a child now [01:45:44] that will suffer quite badly [01:45:47] but still have a life that's worth [01:45:49] living [01:45:50] or you could wait a while and conceive [01:45:52] some other child [01:45:53] that will not suffer anything like the [01:45:55] way that the first child would [01:45:57] see in other words the timing of your [01:46:00] procreation will alter the identity [01:46:02] of the person who's brought into [01:46:03] existence right [01:46:05] let's imagine the person decides not to [01:46:07] delay and they have the first child [01:46:09] then the question is have you done [01:46:12] anything [01:46:13] uh bad have you have you harmed that [01:46:15] child [01:46:17] and what people often want to say is [01:46:19] that because the alternative scenario is [01:46:21] one in which that child would not have [01:46:22] existed [01:46:24] you haven't harmed that child at least [01:46:25] so long as the life is a [01:46:27] life that's worth living of course if [01:46:30] you think that the life is not worth [01:46:31] living [01:46:32] in one sense namely not worth starting [01:46:34] you can say yes having that child [01:46:37] does harm that child if you'd waited and [01:46:38] had the other child you would have [01:46:40] harmed that child perhaps not as badly [01:46:41] as you harmed the first child [01:46:43] but you've nonetheless harmed it and so [01:46:46] i think that this can solve the [01:46:48] the non-identity problem the repugnant [01:46:51] conclusion [01:46:53] is the conclusion of an argument in [01:46:54] which you can either have one world in [01:46:57] which you have a small number of people [01:46:59] with very high quality of life [01:47:01] or a second world in which the quality [01:47:04] of life is slightly lower [01:47:06] but there's sufficient additional people [01:47:08] that the total amount [01:47:10] of happiness as it were in that world is [01:47:12] better [01:47:13] and at least on some views the second [01:47:16] world is preferred to the [01:47:18] to the first to the first world if you [01:47:22] then [01:47:22] continue this process and you keep [01:47:24] imagining a success of worlds [01:47:26] which have increasingly larger [01:47:29] populations [01:47:30] but the quality of life of any [01:47:32] individual is reduced [01:47:34] you end up with what derek parker calls [01:47:36] world zed [01:47:38] or z in american terms which is a [01:47:41] a world in which people have lives that [01:47:43] are just barely worth living but there's [01:47:45] sufficient number of them [01:47:46] that the total happiness or utility in [01:47:48] that build is [01:47:49] greater than in the the very first world [01:47:52] that you imagined [01:47:53] and on these views the think [01:47:57] the total amount of of utility is is [01:47:59] what you should be aiming at [01:48:01] world zed is better than world a and [01:48:04] derek barford thinks that that is a [01:48:05] repugnant conclusion right so i just [01:48:08] want to [01:48:09] spell that out a little more it can be [01:48:11] hard for people to [01:48:12] understand it of hearing it for the [01:48:13] first time so you imagine a world where [01:48:16] let's say there's a billion people who [01:48:19] have [01:48:19] just the best conceivable lives [01:48:22] it's as good as it can possibly get we [01:48:24] can barely imagine how good it is [01:48:26] and that's where you're starting and [01:48:29] then [01:48:30] on the assumption that that more is [01:48:32] better that you know having more happy [01:48:34] people is [01:48:34] is better than having fewer happy people [01:48:37] you could create an [01:48:38] alternate world alongside it which is [01:48:40] where people are [01:48:41] a little bit less happy but just a [01:48:44] little bit i mean it's still [01:48:45] just an unimaginably good world and [01:48:47] there are many many more people so you [01:48:49] know we go from a billion you know super [01:48:51] happy people to [01:48:53] a trillion almost super happy people [01:48:55] that clearly that's better [01:48:57] that intuition can be justified by [01:49:00] our core ethical intuitions that it's [01:49:02] sort of good to spread the wealth around [01:49:04] right it's good to [01:49:05] for people who have or enjoying some [01:49:07] real abundance to make [01:49:09] perhaps minor sacrifices to help other [01:49:12] people [01:49:13] not quite it's not quite drawing on that [01:49:15] same intuition because when you want to [01:49:16] spread the wealth around you sort of [01:49:18] spreading [01:49:18] it spreading it among existing people [01:49:20] right because this thought experiment is [01:49:22] about [01:49:22] two alternative universes [01:49:25] and you've got to choose between them [01:49:27] right and this is sort of where [01:49:29] it runs afoul of your anti-natalist [01:49:31] intuitions as well but [01:49:32] there is this intuition that more [01:49:35] extraordinarily happy lives are better [01:49:37] than [01:49:37] than fewer and if you if you make the [01:49:40] increment of reducing happiness [01:49:42] small enough and add enough [01:49:45] people to the other world it can seem [01:49:47] like a completely straightforward [01:49:49] choice between world a and world b but [01:49:52] if you just continue that process long [01:49:54] enough [01:49:54] all the way to z you wind up with a [01:49:57] world which as you say [01:49:58] is is immensely populated [01:50:02] with lives that are just barely worth [01:50:04] living and these are [01:50:05] on assumption truly terrible lives by [01:50:08] comparison with anything that we would [01:50:10] recognize as being happy ones [01:50:13] your anti-natalist position just [01:50:15] steamrolls over all of that saying all [01:50:17] of these lives are [01:50:19] on balance not worthless blocks the move [01:50:21] from world a to will b [01:50:23] you wouldn't you wouldn't you wouldn't [01:50:25] think that the [01:50:26] the addition of further people would be [01:50:29] uh would be warranted [01:50:31] again i'm coming at this from a very [01:50:32] different angle and i've always thought [01:50:33] that [01:50:34] parfits paradoxes here are somewhat [01:50:37] analogous [01:50:38] to zeno's paradoxes where they seem [01:50:40] compelling [01:50:41] on their own terms but then there's [01:50:43] undoubtedly some way of thinking about [01:50:45] them [01:50:46] that reveals that they're just they're [01:50:48] not compelling at all i mean [01:50:49] xenos you know classic paradox of if you [01:50:52] shoot an arrow at a target [01:50:54] it first must go halfway and then go [01:50:56] another half of the way and then another [01:50:57] half of the way and then you know on [01:50:59] that analysis it never gets there [01:51:01] and then you know some developments in [01:51:02] mathematics [01:51:04] some in an infinite series has proved [01:51:06] that you you need not be constrained by [01:51:08] the way [01:51:09] zeno was thinking about these things and [01:51:12] i've always hoped that [01:51:13] something similar could happen with [01:51:15] parfit i guess one [01:51:16] move i make on my own terms here is that [01:51:20] perhaps the repugnant conclusion isn't [01:51:22] that repugnant [01:51:24] because the lives that are barely worth [01:51:27] living [01:51:28] are more or less our own [01:51:31] this is where you sort of cross into [01:51:33] barely worth living [01:51:35] i mean this has got to at least resonate [01:51:36] with you a little bit that [01:51:38] life as we know it is where you would [01:51:41] draw the line [01:51:42] between worth living and not there are [01:51:45] some philosophers who have said that we [01:51:46] are in that world zed [01:51:48] and that they think because they said [01:51:50] optimus that when you look at [01:51:51] uh when you look at it that way then you [01:51:54] think world zed isn't as bad as [01:51:56] uh as it's otherwise thought to be um [01:51:59] but that doesn't bring me comfort though [01:52:01] it's bad enough right right but these [01:52:03] other population problems that derek [01:52:05] profit comes from really a rise [01:52:07] from the non-identity problem because if [01:52:09] the non-identity problem [01:52:10] can be solved then he doesn't need to [01:52:12] move on to the other theories [01:52:13] that lead to the other population [01:52:15] problems right [01:52:17] and so if you think the non-identity [01:52:18] problem can be solved uh [01:52:21] in the way i'm suggesting you don't need [01:52:23] to move on to those other theories that [01:52:24] yield other problems [01:52:26] david it's been it has been a [01:52:28] fascinating conversation [01:52:29] at least for me these are the kinds of [01:52:32] conversations that [01:52:33] make life just barely worth living [01:52:36] so so thank you for that is there [01:52:39] anything else [01:52:40] you think we should touch to tie this up [01:52:43] or um did we [01:52:44] run through everything there's so many [01:52:46] things but i think we've [01:52:48] we've had a good discussion about some [01:52:50] issues and it's probably better to [01:52:52] leave it at that than just to touch very [01:52:53] briefly on some others [01:52:55] so i just want to thank you for your [01:52:56] interest and for your very thoughtful [01:52:58] engagement [01:52:59] yeah where should we point people to [01:53:01] your [01:53:02] presence online do you have uh do you do [01:53:05] social media or i know [01:53:06] as you said you're cagey about your your [01:53:08] personal life [01:53:09] i don't do any of that now i suppose i [01:53:11] would refer people to [01:53:13] to the books that i've written if they [01:53:14] want to probe these matters in more [01:53:16] detail [01:53:17] yeah so the one book was better than [01:53:18] ever to have been [01:53:20] and then more recently i've published a [01:53:22] book just this year called [01:53:23] the human predicament and those two [01:53:26] cover many of the we've been speaking [01:53:28] about this evening and more [01:53:29] great great well i will put links to [01:53:31] both those books on my blog where i [01:53:33] embed this podcast [01:53:35] and um thanks again for your time david [01:53:38] thank you very much [01:53:40] [Music]