Life worth continuing – present-life sense -> judgment about already existing person.
Life worth starting – future-life sense -> judgment about potential (non-existing) person.
Problem occurs when „present-life perspective” is applied to „future-life” sense.
When we talk about impairments, we think how they affect already existing life („present-life sense”).
Impairments:
-> those which make life worth continuing (not severe);
-> those which make life NOT worth continuing (severe);
Are not the same if we apply them to future life sense, although we instinctively make such an erroneous leap.
/—/
Impairment = lack of limb.
We’d say lack of limb is not severe enough to stop continuing life (ergo: life without a limb is worth continuing).
Yet at the same time we’d say lack of limb is severe enough NOT TO START a life (ergo: life without a limb is not worth starting).
Same impairment in two different senses makes all the difference.
/—/
The threshold to stop continuing existing life is much bigger for us than the one to NOT starting life.
Which implies that:
-> if impairment X is making life STOP continuing, then it is obviously making life NOT worth starting;
-> but it doesn’t mean that if X is NOT severe enough to STOP continuing life, it makes it automatically worth STARTING it;
Life worth continuing (without a limb f.e.) is usually NOT the life worth starting.
Thus: it might be preferable NOT to begin life worth living (there is no contradiction here).
———–
[Dread Sovereign – Live Through Martyrs / Transmissions from the Devil Star]
We life out through martyrs and die for life