janw@inmet.UUCP (09/08/86)
[Oded Feingold: oaf@mit-vax.UUCP] >With the human population burgeoning beyond all reasonable bounds, and >pushing the rest of creation into extinction, maybe what we really >need is freely available euthanasia, which people can and will (enthu- >siastically) self-administer. The premise is wrong: human population does not loom as large vis-a-vis the rest of creation as some of its members believe. If all the 5 billion of us were drowned in the Great Lakes, how much would the water level rise? A fraction of an inch. However, given the premise - and many people accept it - the conclusion is by far the best that can be made. Some people are so scared of babies they propose coercive population control - a conception police. Oded's proposal is non-coercive. But it is morally preferable even compared to encouraging volun- tary population control. What are the malthusians afraid of? That people may be brought into the world whose life will be not worth living? Well, let *them* be the judges of that. If it's not worth it, they can quit. If they are never born, they get no chance and no choice. The oaf plan makes the population problem completely self-regu- lating. Once it is implemented - cyanide over the counter or a suicide booth at the corner, and once the customs adapt to accept it - the world is guaranteed a population the *worst-off* part of which thinks life worth living. But these would be at the tail of the happiness distribution curve - which means, in any reasonable distribution, that the ma- jority would be well above that level. So let us adopt the plan. At any rate all population control advocates should embrace it, *unless* what really interests them is not overpopulation, but control for control's sake. If they won't let people be born *or* die without permission, then they simply want total control over you - or, in equivalent words - they want to *own* you. Jan Wasilewsky
radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal) (09/15/86)
In article <559@gargoyle.UUCP>, carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: > [Jan Wasilewsky] > >Oded's proposal [ easy euthenasia] is non-coercive. But it is morally > >preferable even > >compared to encouraging voluntary population control. What are the > >malthusians afraid of? That people may be brought into the world > >whose life will be not worth living? Well, let *them* be the judges > >of that. > > Your view, evidently, is that a possible person is better off if he > exists, so long as he is not so miserable as to take his own life, > than if this possible person never comes to exist. Well, I can quote > Sophocles as a distinguished authority against this view. But it is > a very dubious one in any case. A possible person is not a real > person who can be better or worse off. There is in fact no person > until the moment the person comes into existence. There was no > actual Jan before Jan came into existence, there were only > possibilities. > > ... > > >At any rate all population control advocates should embrace it, > >*unless* what really interests them is not overpopulation, but > >control for control's sake. If they won't let people be born *or* die > >without permission, then they simply want total control over you - > >or, in equivalent words - they want to *own* you. > > Even if my motives are to enslave the world and become dictator for > life, that would be irrelevant to the philosophical and scientific > issues we have been discussing.... > > Richard Carnes My guess is that Jan meant this as a satire on Carnes' utilitarian philosophy of the greatest good for the greatest number. He points out that any person who doesn't commit suicide must in some sense have a positive quantity of happiness, so the utilitarian philosophy has difficulty in saying he shouldn't have been born. For those who don't believe Jan meant this as satire, I will point out that effective means of suicide have never been hard to come by, so this isn't much of a "proposal". I also note that the title of the posting, "A Modest Proposal", was first used by Jonathan Swift in advocating that Irish babies be eaten. Radford Neal
janw@inmet.UUCP (09/19/86)
>[carnes@gargoyle.UUCP ] >>Oded's proposal is non-coercive. But it is morally preferable even >>compared to encouraging voluntary population control. What are the >>malthusians afraid of? That people may be brought into the world >>whose life will be not worth living? Well, let *them* be the judges >>of that. >The Malthusians are afraid of the prospect of a large number of >people whose lives are much poorer, shorter, and less fulfilling than >they need to be. Consider an African child born in the next century >who faces an impoverished and malnourished life owing to >overpopulation. Your response is to make suicide pills available -- >presumably not through the government. Then, since this hypothetical >person can freely choose to live or die, you consider that the >situation is morally acceptable. More: the idea is that, under the "Modest Proposal", that level of misery would not even be reached. >Your view, evidently, is that a possible person is better off if he >exists, so long as he is not so miserable as to take his own life, >than if this possible person never comes to exist. Well, I can quote >Sophocles as a distinguished authority against this view. But that testimony *supports* the "Modest Proposal" - that would lower the threshold of misery. Are you arguing *few* people would take advantage of it? I expected the *opposite* objection... But even a few would contribute to population control... >But it is a very dubious one in any case. A possible person is >not a real person who can be better or worse off. There is in >fact no person until the moment the person comes into existence. Or *after* the person goes out of existence. The symmetry is complete. Neither are morally indifferent; we feel sympathy with those who no longer exist, and for those who are not born - and may never be. Test it: you wouldn't like a *zero* birth rate, would you? Whom would it affect adversely? Generations that wouldn't exist? It would be a pity to deprive them of the chance! But let's select a criterion both of us find acceptable: sum to- tal of human happiness. Then not only is it better to have happy people than unhappy ones, but it is better to have *more* happy people than fewer. Oded's scheme - assuming complete success in changing laws and mores - guarantees that (1) *only* not-unhappy people live, (2) most of them are happy (the bell-shaped curve takes care of that) and (3) a maximum number compatible with (1) and with pro- creative freedom, live. Whereas population control measures ensure neither (1) nor (2) nor (3). >We ought to maximize the number of good, happy >lives -- not the number of merely endurable lives. See (2) above. To quote a part of my original note: >>... the world is guaranteed a population the *worst-off* part of >>which thinks life worth living. >>But these would be at the tail of the happiness distribution >>curve - which means, in any reasonable distribution, that the ma- >>jority would be well above that level. You never answered that. >Pity the poor unicorn, never to run and play in the fields like >his four-footed counterparts who are lucky enough to exist -- >what a colossal injustice has been perpetrated on the unicorn. If it was up to us to create the unicorn or not, then that prob- lem would arise. And assuming a unicorn to have the greatest capacity for happiness of all imaginable creatures - it would be cruel of us not to create it. >My response to the question of the hypothetical 21st century >African is that we should strive to keep the human population >below levels at which this African may be expected to be miser- >able for a substantial part of his life. The "modest proposal" does it - automatically. Whereas you may overshoot the mark - and descend to *another* misery level. For you have no cause to assume misery to be a monotonic function of numbers. >>Some people are so scared of babies they propose coercive population >>control - a conception police. >This is a distortion. I have not "proposed" coercive population >control measures, without qualification; Have I named you? Have I ever been shy of naming my opponents? Some of the people you quote *do* make such recommendations. Some other people even try to carry them out. I meant them, not you - although a *similar* case can be built against your *conditional* acceptance of their proposals. >Most of the articles objecting to coercive measures (particularly >from the libertarian camp) have been kneejerk reactions to the terms >"coercive" and "coercion". I have already pointed out that one of >the strong points of libertarianism is that you do not have to work >very hard or study very long to understand it. Coercion is bad: now >you understand moral and political philosophy. The rest of us have >to beat our brains out on tough philosophical issues. An elementary principle like "coercion is bad" is not the end of wisdom - but a beginning of it. *If* it is true - then refusing to accept it (and I have never seen you accept it) undermines the sophisticated superstructures you build. *Accepting* it doesn't solve all problems either - tough philosophical issues still have to be tackled. To get to them, you can just stipulate agreement with the basic principle and ask tough questions. >>At any rate all population control advocates should embrace it, >>*unless* what really interests them is not overpopulation, but >>control for control's sake. If they won't let people be born *or* die >>without permission, then they simply want total control over you - >>or, in equivalent words - they want to *own* you. >Even if my motives are to enslave the world and become dictator for >life, that would be irrelevant to the philosophical and scientific >issues we have been discussing. Again, I was not addressing you (though I am always willing to argue with you). You could not be the hypothetical *they* in the *If* clause - because you had *not* rejected the "modest proposal". I was speaking of the internal logic of the position of a Malthu- sian who *would* reject it. Now, in the real world, do I mean that some people really want to control and own everyone? First of all, I mean not indi- viduals but a class - the mandarin class. Secondly, its members want power not just for themselves but for the whole class. Thirdly, all kinds of rationalizations are present in individual minds to justify that aim. Generally, they commit what Bertrand Russell called the Administrator's Fallacy. It works like this: suppose you contemplate what a good society would be like. If you unconsciously project yourself into the role of someone who organizes and runs it - quite natural, be- cause you are its *author* - then you tend to favor societies that are a pleasure to *run*, not those that are a pleasure to *live* in. Orderly, symmetrical societies are preferred - neither self- controlling ones that would make the administrator's job redun- dant, nor uncontrollable ones that would make it impossible. Most utopia authors commit this fallacy. Social theorists are also subject to it . >If you want to engage in a >name-calling or motive-attribution contest, please do it somewhere I do not. No name-calling without names! (Preferably none at all). The only name in my note was Oded's, and I did not call him names... Jan Wasilewsky
janw@inmet.UUCP (09/20/86)
[radford@calgary.UUCP ] >For those who don't believe Jan meant this as satire, I will point out >that effective means of suicide have never been hard to come by, so this >isn't much of a "proposal". A "decriminalized but not legalized" case. But I made my position clear many times. I like people; I welcome more of them around; I think they make more living space for each other than they take; but I also think birth and death ought to be private. I am not into social tinkering of either population- reducing, or population-increasing kind. The "proposal" is in the nature of a challenge to the other side of the debate: if you want that, say I, then you ought to prefer this. Utilitarianism is not my basic approach: but I believe that, con- sistently followed, it leads to libertarian conclusions, as it often did in the hands of Mill. >I also note that the title of the posting, >"A Modest Proposal", was first used by Jonathan Swift in advocating >that Irish babies be eaten. Exactly. That old essay is a staple of modern English-language education. I expected readers to recollect it. To make it even clearer: I don't recommend or encourage suicide. If I did, I would do it for the sake of the person involved - not to relieve traffic congestion (like that governor who said old people have a duty to die). But even *that* is less heinous than imposed birth control. Jan Wasilewsky
janw@inmet.UUCP (09/22/86)
>[Bob Hartman, quoted by Richard Carnes] >>The premise is wrong: human population does not loom as large >>vis-a-vis the rest of creation as some of its members believe. If >>all the 5 billion of us were drowned in the Great Lakes, how much >>would the water level rise? A fraction of an inch. >This is true, but it's an improper measure. It's not the combined >volume of our bodies, but annual volume of food, fiber and fuel we >consume that are the limiting factors, along with the capacity of the >ecosystem to recycle our byproducts. I was answering an assertion that, by multiplying, we are crowd- ing out "the rest of creation". The volume of our bodies *is* ap- propriate to compare with the volume of other things in nature - which includes the Great Lakes. The amount of stuff we *process* is another measure; it can be compared to the amount of stuff moving about in nature. The answer would be the same - we are as yet a (physically) minor effect in creation. We are not crowding out the Gulf Stream or the monsoons, we have no effect on vol- canoes and earthquakes - and all of *these* are merely surface phenomena on one planet. As to the "capacity of the ecosystem to recycle our byproducts" - we are increasingly recycling them ourselves. But if an ecosystem cannot recycle something - then it *changes*. So what? Coral reefs aren't recycled - they grow. Why should humans deny humans what nature allows to polyps? And if eventually we become a *major* factor in the evolution of species - what is wrong with that? All air-breathing vertebrates are apparently descended from one fish species. If, some day, most of them are descended either from humans or from human-bred animals - need we wring our hands in advance? Maybe the change is for the better - whatever *that* means... No one can predict ecological changes with any accuracy. If some- one wants to disprove that, all they have to do is to establish a record of accurate long-term predictions. Failing that, acting on some phony predictions would be folly. All we can do is react to the situation as it changes. To be able to do so, we need not (necessarily) more untouched nature, but (certainly) more sci- ence and technology, more energy, greater information-processing capacity, a greater surplus GNP. Jan Wasilewsky