• You are not required to create a happy person, but you are definitely not allowed to create a miserable one
Who’s going around enforcing this rule? There’s certainly a stigma attached to people having children when those children will predictably be unhappy, but most people aren’t willing to resort to, e.g., nonconsensual sterilization to enforce it, and AFAIK we haven’t passed laws to the effect that people can be convicted, under penalty of fine or imprisonment, of having children despite knowing that those children would be at high risk of inheriting a severe genetic disorder, for example. Maybe this is just because it’s hard to predict who will have kids, when they will have them, and how happy those kids will be, thereby making enforcement efforts unreasonably costly and invasive? I don’t know, just commenting because this supposed norm struck me as much weaker than the other ones you name. Very interesting post overall though, this isn’t meant as criticism.
If I marry my true love, someone else who loves my spouse may feel miserable as a result. No one is obligated to avoid creating this sort of misery in another person. We might quibble that such a person is immature and taking the wrong attitude, but the “norm” does not make exceptions where the victims are complicit in their own misery, it just prohibits anyone from causing it.
We might be able to construct a similar thought experiment for “dire situations”. If I invent a new process that puts you out of business by attracting all your customers, your situation may become dire, due to your sudden loss of income. Am I obligated in any way to avoid this? I think not.
Those two norms (don’t cause misery or dire situations) only work as local norms, within your local sphere of intimate knowledge. In a large-scale society, there is no way to assure that a particular decision won’t change something that someone depends upon emotionally or economically. This is just a challenge of cosmopolitan life, that I have the ultimate responsibility for my emotional and economic dependencies, in the literal sense that I am the one who will suffer if I make an unwise or unlucky choice. I can’t count on the system (any system) to rectify my errors (though different systems may make my job harder or easier).
My quibble still works. I couldn’t know for sure while trying to conceive a child that my situation would necessarily continue to be sufficient to care for that child (shit can happen to anyone). Even if my circumstances continue as expected my children may develop physical or mental problems that could make them miserable. It’s not a yes/no question, it’s a “how much rusk” question. Where do we draw the line between too much risk and a reasonable risk?
Who’s going around enforcing this rule? There’s certainly a stigma attached to people having children when those children will predictably be unhappy, but most people aren’t willing to resort to, e.g., nonconsensual sterilization to enforce it, and AFAIK we haven’t passed laws to the effect that people can be convicted, under penalty of fine or imprisonment, of having children despite knowing that those children would be at high risk of inheriting a severe genetic disorder, for example. Maybe this is just because it’s hard to predict who will have kids, when they will have them, and how happy those kids will be, thereby making enforcement efforts unreasonably costly and invasive? I don’t know, just commenting because this supposed norm struck me as much weaker than the other ones you name. Very interesting post overall though, this isn’t meant as criticism.
It is not even a norm.
If I marry my true love, someone else who loves my spouse may feel miserable as a result. No one is obligated to avoid creating this sort of misery in another person. We might quibble that such a person is immature and taking the wrong attitude, but the “norm” does not make exceptions where the victims are complicit in their own misery, it just prohibits anyone from causing it.
We might be able to construct a similar thought experiment for “dire situations”. If I invent a new process that puts you out of business by attracting all your customers, your situation may become dire, due to your sudden loss of income. Am I obligated in any way to avoid this? I think not.
Those two norms (don’t cause misery or dire situations) only work as local norms, within your local sphere of intimate knowledge. In a large-scale society, there is no way to assure that a particular decision won’t change something that someone depends upon emotionally or economically. This is just a challenge of cosmopolitan life, that I have the ultimate responsibility for my emotional and economic dependencies, in the literal sense that I am the one who will suffer if I make an unwise or unlucky choice. I can’t count on the system (any system) to rectify my errors (though different systems may make my job harder or easier).
Oops, I misinterpreted “create”, didn’t I?
My quibble still works. I couldn’t know for sure while trying to conceive a child that my situation would necessarily continue to be sufficient to care for that child (shit can happen to anyone). Even if my circumstances continue as expected my children may develop physical or mental problems that could make them miserable. It’s not a yes/no question, it’s a “how much rusk” question. Where do we draw the line between too much risk and a reasonable risk?