Post
Topic
Board Politics & Society
Re: So much for trying to bring philosophy to the public
by
neoneros
on 27/08/2015, 10:09:39 UTC
Quote from: Torbjörn Tännsjö, Vox.com
You should [not] have kids. Not because it’s fun, or rewarding, or in your evolutionary self-interest.

You should [not] have kids because it’s your [ethical] duty to [not] do so.

My argument is simple. Most people live lives that are, on net, happy. For them to never exist, then, would be to deny them that happiness. And because I think we have a moral duty to m[in]imize the amount of happiness in the world, that means that we all have an obligation to make the world as [un]populated as can be.

[...]

"[E]volutionary self-interest" (Tännsjö) renders the above absurd and, thus, its source material.

You cannot deny someone something if that someone does not exits, the same as he states, that same someone cannot complain about it being born twenty years too early, it is a contradiction. His piece has too many holes, that is why I would not have published it, not the majority of readers might be worried about them misinterpreting the thoughts.

the public does not want philosophy, there a just too few people interested in this level of thought and abstract thinking is not for the masses. You can see it in the media whenever a philosopher is on a panel or interview, it are always the ones that provide very simplistic ideas and appeal to the mass audiences, not the ones that truly digg deep into the big questions and trying to put abstraction upon abstraction.