/lit/ - Literature

>>14028217

Eh, I don't normally post but I'll bite. I'll preface by saying I have negative hedonistic utilitarian leanings. Basically, only hedonic levels of suffering and happiness have any moral weight - and suffering matters more.

I'm not a "strong antinatalist" for several reasons (There's a lot to unpack there) - but I think one should really reflect on the average hedonic level of well-being for the average sentient human on the planet - we'll keep other animals out for sake of simplicity.

I have two questions for any fellow utilitarians willing to answer:

1. Are suffering and happiness symmetrical in moral weight as is commonly posed?

2. Are the average levels of hedonic well-being enough to justify further procreation?


I take the intuition that suffering has moral priority over happiness. Additionally, I intuit that Darwinian life is unreasonably more skewed in the negative direction.

Evolution doesn't want us content, it wants us motivated (Refer back to the Buddhist conception of perpetual desire [suffering] if you must).

Any thoughts? Any other takes from differing moral frameworks (Non-utilitarians)?