What's Better Than Not Being Born?- Another Axiom Queston

[ill rich]

what's better than not being born? probably, being born.

[rakemeplz]

Its hard for those that exist to imagine non-existance. I think many existing people are horrified by it IMO.

[A_C_Slater]

"Not to be born at all is the most to be desired; but having seen the light, the next best is to die as soon as possible" -- Sophocles

[PLOlover]

I think the easy answer is when you have become the opposite of your ideal, and destroyed things you've valued in the process. Without the second part, suicide may be sufficient.

For example, suppose you are a good man and a family man and you become corrupted in order to gain wealth which will further yourself and your family, with the result that your family is killed because of your involvement in corruption.

Better to never have lived?

I think it's a semi-common movie theme btw.

[Piemaster]

I think that many people are looking at this question in the wrong way.

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How bad does someone's life have to be such they would instead choose to be aborted

[/ QUOTE ]

Note that this is not the same as asking how bad someone's life would be before they committed suicide. If you could go back in time and abort your own fetus, ala The Butterfly Effect, ignoring the temporal paradox, you are not simply killing yourself, but erasing your entire life from history.

For example, a particularly noble person might wish they had been aborted if their life had somehow inflicted a large amount of pain and suffering on others, even if they were perfectly happy with their own life (although obviously they are more likely to feel this way if they also had a sucky life).

On the other hand, somebody who hated their life and wanted to commit suicide might prefer suicide to never having existed if they are proud of some of their past accomplishments or if they feel their life had positively inpacted that of others.

[Ghazban]

[ QUOTE ]
In a nutshell how bad does someone's life have to be such they would instead choose to be aborted, if that was somehow possible.

[/ QUOTE ]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/

[Shandrax]

It depends...

[the_scalp]

I think the answer to this question is almost entirely contingent upon one's metaphysical assumptions.

If you're a fervent materialist egoist, it seems the clear answer to the question: "in what cases ought someone wish they'd never been born?" is "in those cases where the amount of joy/pleasure experienced by the individual does nto justify the amount of pain/unhappiness".

If you're a materialist utilitarian, wouldn't the answer be something like: "whenever my ocntribution to general (including my own) happiness outweights my contribution to general (including my own) unhappiness".

If you come from a faith tradition, it seems that you should answer this question with: "whenever God would rather that I wasn't born, I should will the same thing". God's wishing someone wasn't born is imaginable to me (although God loved Pol Pot, Pol Pot's existence may have been an unredeemable result of human sin, therefore, if Pol Pot was religious and recognized that God wishes he hadn't been born, Pol Pot in turn would have wished he hadn't been born). Note that this does not mean Pol Pot should then wish himself to die.

As for how religious people can discern whether God wishes that they had been born or not -- it's not really an important question, they were born, so they should instead discern what God wants them to do right now.

There have been interesting cases in the areas of medicine/law in which children whose parents chose to have them in spite of knowing about some horrile condition sued their parents for "wrongful life". I think these cases have been taken quite seriously. Google "wrongful life".

Interesting question.

[Shandrax]

...it depends on how much they would pay not to be killed later on. It's kinda similar to the friends-enemy-rating system.

[nineinchal]

If I knew I was going to have to take the gay shower with Sklansky, I would have chose to be aborted!

Is there really any choice in this instance?