Also, wouldn't the purpose be to maximize one's pleasure (or reduce suffering)? Supposing you are utilitarian (supposing you are a negative one).
I'm a negative utilitarian, yes.
I agree with utilitarianism's notion that we should reduce and ideally eliminate suffering, but I don't think that maximizing pleasure or happiness is something we should focus on. Or more specifically, I think that attempting to do the latter is misunderstanding what pleasure even is in the first place.
Why you think something that is pointless shouldn't be done?
I don't think that.
I think that it shouldn't be done because of the potential for harm and the inevitability of harm. When I'm talking about life's propagation being pointless, I'm saying that we have no reason to continue it. The reasons why we shouldn't do it are separate from that.
Is there something wrong about doing something because you feel like doing it?
Not intrinsically.
I would say that it's wrong in this context because it's creating the very capacity for suffering, that it provides nothing (or at least nothing needed because it's creating need), and that just wanting to procreate isn't nearly a good enough reason to do so.
1-Pleasure x Suffering when it comes down to the whole population's judgement. This same person can't experience life and though life's brings suffering, life it is preferrable over death by most, therefore the odds are that the child will be benefited from the parent's actions.
Now I'll go back to what I was getting at about pleasure.
Pleasure is ultimately enslaved to deprivation, and that as far as I can ascertain, just about everything pleasurable in life comes as a result of relieving some preexisting need. While I haven't tried every potential source of pleasure, specifically hard drugs, it would seem that these create a need of their own (and are typically used to cope with pain, both physical and emotional), so idk to what extent these could possibly be separate. Another thing to keep in mind is that much of what we do is done in an effort to relieve boredom, and it can be easily determined that having nothing to do causes suffering for us in and of itself, just look at solitary confinement.
I'm saying that pleasure is a measured reduction in negative utility which we're mistaking to be an independent positive. It feels good because we're perceiving the satisfaction of some need as pleasurable, but ultimately this doesn't actually produce anything.
Of course satisfying needs and reducing negative utility are great things, I'm not saying we shouldn't do them. Rather what I'm actually saying is that while it's good to do this stuff, it would be better if we never had the needs in the first place, since we're only reducing or removing harm already done to us through satisfying them.
An example relevant to users here would be sex, and how prior to puberty we didn't want sex. There was no deprivation for us to feel, and no relief to experience as a result of fulfilling a need which we didn't have. So there was no suffering of this kind, and we certainly weren't missing out on sexual pleasure since this pleasure is dependent upon and enslaved to our craving for sex.
I hope this concise explanation is adequate to understand my thoughts on the subject, as I remember mentioning it to you my other thread but I didn't want to derail it too hard.
2-One can't predict if it's offspring will live a life of suffering, since the latter isn't a logical consequence from birth. Therefore you can't classify its actions as immoral.
It is a logical consequence, it's also inevitable and guaranteed. Humans are need machines, and aside from what I already described about the nature of pleasure, you also have the forms of suffering for which there isn't always an obvious or complete relief. Physical pain (especially chronic pain), hopelessness, existential dread, mortality salience, and other problems which come as a cost of our heightened cognition when compared to other animals.
Now if you argue that any ammount of suffering, regardless of the ammount of pleasure, makes an action immoral, then all the points are useless. But that's assuming that suffering is bad, therefore you are not looking at it through a nihilistic optic.
Yeah we're most probably at an impasse, but I thought that I at least owed you an explanation as to why.
Moral nihilism and existential nihilism are obviously two different things, and while I don't fully agree with either of them, I was using an argument based in the latter to make a point. But yes, I only agree with certain aspects of existential nihilism while wholly rejecting it's moral counterpart.
Also, would it be immoral to not (inaction) bring one to existence? Assuming that this one would live a life of pure pleasure, no suffering
Well this isn't a thought that I've explored too much tbh. Suffice it to say that in a hypothetical world where one could experience exclusively pleasure, I don't think that there would be a moral imperative to create life. But I would argue that in this hypothetical universe where pleasure is true positive utility, then even if procreating isn't a moral imperative, you'd still be doing a good thing.
Of course this is predicated on the existence of this person somehow not being dependent upon the suffering of other sentient life.
Also, you are not dooming those people (once they have a choice to continue alive or not) to a pain situation
They still have to experience enough pain to come to the conclusion that suicide is the right choice for them. Needless to say this isn't an easy choice, and we can reasonably assume that for most it requires a lot of pain, due to our bias for our own continued existence/biological programming.
But you're right in the sense that people can thankfully opt out if their suffering becomes too much to bear, which I'm thankful for and is one of the only redeeming things about this life.