Philosoffee

So, one plus one equals two. We'll come back to that. Perhaps I am merely aging, nothing more, but I find that I am becoming a slightly more practically minded person. In my youth (which is perhaps a silly phrase, as I'm only 30) I was a bit more idealistic. Radical philosophical and political ideas were enticing to me, then. Now when I hear about radical ideas, I find myself first questioning the logistics involved. The twinkle went out of my eye when I began to realize just how clunky the actual gears of society are, and thus just how messy any change away from current political structures would be. I became a pragmatist. I say all that only to point out that I'm not some starry-eyed youngling who is about to suggest that Mr. Bezos is mean just for being a boss. I accept that there will always be some sort of hierarchy in life. In fact, I think that there should be (healthy, justified) hierarchies if for no other reason than because I cannot fathom a world in whi...

(This post is another in the Self series. Themed around explorations of what it means to be a Self, what its like to be a Self, and whether or not "Self" is a meaningful concept, we'll be thinking today about some social and philosophical components of self-hood) This is not an essay where I'll be stating any kind of actual stance on something. To be honest, I'm working through some questions I have about the topics I'm going to raise below. However, rather than put up what was quickly becoming a too-lengthy post, I decided to bring up the background issues that are currently setting the stage for my thoughts on Self. The Self has taken a front and center seat in our national consciousness. This is a strange thing to say. After all, have people not always been concerned with their selves? Well, they have...but the nature of Self as a problem ; questions regarding"Who am I? What am I? What is my purpose?" have come to the forefront in an interest...

No. But that's a claim I'll have to back up later on. However, there are some people who would answer that question in the affirmative. They would say that life is so bad. So bad, in fact, that it isn't worth living. So bad that conscious life (or at least life with consciousness like our own) should choose to die out. In fact, these people claim that life is so bad that it is actively immoral to have children, because doing so only perpetrates this bad condition. These people fall under the broad philosophy of anti-natalism. They think of themselves as standing opposed to "natalists", or people who are actively or passively pro-birth. The term 'natal' (as in prenatal care, post-natal ward, natality report) refers to one's birth. An anti-natalist is someone who, roughly speaking, thinks that no one should ever be born. Note that this has next to nothing to do with the abortion debate. The question here is not "Is it ever okay to terminate a fe...