From: Ernest N. Prabhakar (ernest@alumni.caltech.edu)
Date: Thu Sep 14 2000 - 05:59:22 PDT
Jeff wrote that I wrote:
>> a) Deciding you prefer responsibility to freedom as a source of meaning
> Let's extrapolate: so, decision to parent == preference for responsibility.
> Those welfare mothers of 12 kids must be really responsible people, huh?
Can somebody say "strawman"?
Unless my mailer ate something, what I was commending was:
a) Deciding you prefer responsibility to freedom as a source of meaning
b) Getting married
c) Having kids [specifically, choosing to have kids]
Clearly a single welfare mother is skipping both stages (a) and (b), so I
fail to see the relevance of your example.
My basic point is precisely the same as yours - *just* having kids is in
itself no great virtue. Can we agree that we agree on that? I was arguing
for a *reason* to have kids.
> Really, Ernie, you mean to tell
> me that having kids is in some way "more deeply human" than, say, spending
> your life backpacking across the world?
Close. As I said, having kids itself is not necessarily a virtue. (just
like -having- an Olympic gold medal is not necessarily a great virtue, e.g.,
if you stole it from an Olympian!).
My argument was that I consider the *entire* progression:
love -> marriage -> kids
to be "morally superior" to a life spent primarily on meeting one's own
needs and enhancing one's own experience (e.g., backpacking).
This follows directly from my belief that love is the fundamental human
virtue, and therefore a lifestyle which fosters (even requires) the growth
of love is preferable to one which does not.
Obviously this is a fairly strong value judgement. I'm not saying you have
to agree with me - I'm just saying you're wrong if you disagree. :-)
Now, if you were doing the Mother Teresa thing - travelling the world to
seek out the poorest of the poor so you could share their dying hours - then
that'd be a totally different story than "just backpacking" (IMHVS, of
course).
In my value system:
"[personal] freedom" - the ability to do whatever you want
is much less important than:
"[committed] love" - a long-term commitment to someone else's greatest
good
Are you essentially arguing for a value system where the choice between
'freedom' and 'love' (so defined) is at least morally neutral?
If so, then at least we know where to agree to disagree (which'll put us
ahead of Dave & Dan in the FoRK-ratings!).
Yours truly,
Ernie "the mad pontificator" Prabhakar
on 9/13/00 11:04 AM, Jeff Bone at jbone@jump.net wrote:
>
>
>> a) Deciding you prefer responsibility to freedom as a source of meaning
>
> This is always the kind of loaded language that gets used when the rubber hits
> the
> road in discussions about having kids. Why is there a choice between
> "freedom" and
> "responsibility," i.e. why the implication that those are opposed in some way?
> Why
> does the pro-parenting crowd inevitably imply that "preferring freedom" is
> necessarily "irresponsible?" IMO, though this isn't alway the case, folks who
> make
> the decision *to* have kids are *often* making an irresponsible decision.
> Conversely, IMO, I think anyone who makes a decision *not* to have kids is by
> default making a *responsible* decision.
>
> Let's extrapolate: so, decision to parent == preference for responsibility.
> Those
> welfare mothers of 12 kids must be really responsible people, huh?
>
>
>> Yes, I believe people who are able to go through all of these enter
>> moredeeply
>> (according to my humble utility function) into the "human experience"
>
> ....or, maybe it's just "the parenting experience." Really, Ernie, you mean
> to tell
> me that having kids is in some way "more deeply human" than, say, spending
> your life
> backpacking across the world?
>
> Extrapolating again: parenting == "more deeply into the human experience."
> Therefore, those welfare mothers must be buried up to their eyeballs in "the
> human
> experience," huh?
>
> Interesting.
>
>> P.S. And actually most rich people I know *do* preach that everyone
>> 'should' be rich,
>
> We should've recruited some of them a few weeks ago for that thread....
>
> jb
>
>
>
-------------------------------------
Ernest N. Prabhakar, Ph.D.
ernest@drernie.com
http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~ernest
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