Is it better never to have been born?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

David Benatar argues that being brought into existence is never a benefit but is always a harm.  While most people believe that living is beneficial as long as the benefits of life outweigh the evil or the pain that they experience, Bentaur argues that this conclusion does not follow because 1) pain is bad, and 2) pleasure is good; but 3) the absence of pain is always good whether people exist or not, whereas 4) the absence of pleasure is only bad if people exist to be denied it.

There's more to the article that I referenced here, but I wanted to get some takes on the part of his argument that pertains to the intrinsic value of life.  Should life, assuming it has any value or meaning to it at all, be considered a negative?

[Antonio the Sixth]

This question makes no sense. It's logically impossible to "compare" the value of existence to that of non-existence because, in non-existence, there is no being whose condition can be assessed.

I'm not that familiar with Wittgenstein, but I suspect this is exactly the sort of philosophical question he'd gleefully tear apart.

[Blue3]

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

This question makes no sense. It's logically impossible to "compare" the value of existence to that of non-existence because, in non-existence, there is no being whose condition can be assessed.

I'm not that familiar with Wittgenstein, but I suspect this is exactly the sort of philosophical question he'd gleefully tear apart.

It's not a question of comparison.  The premise is that it is better to not exist because not existing means not having to experience pain.  Nonexistence means you do not experience pleasure either, but the denial of pleasure is only bad if you exist to experience that.  Nonexistence isn't a state which its conditions can be assessed, but we know that pain cannot be experienced.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

That definitely sounds better written down.

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You can't have good without evil.

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You can't have light without darkness.

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Never mistake cynicism for apathy.

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See above.

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Clinging on to false hope makes you weak.

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Christ, the people who wrote that show sure love to beat cliché metaphors to death.

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Nope.  Reality stays the same regardless of what your "focus" is.  Reality doesn't care what your dreams are or what you would like reality to be.

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We know what happened to her.

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Until it turned very bad.  (And the Book of Genesis would indicate that didn't take very long.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You could make an argument to this effect, sure, but to do so is sort of to leave your fellow human beings in the lurch.

Christ, the people who wrote that show sure love to beat cliché metaphors to death.

To be fair, Avatar was for six-to-eleven-year-olds. It found an audience outside that age range because other aspects of its writing were actually pretty clever.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

You could make an argument to this effect, sure, but to do so is sort of to leave your fellow human beings in the lurch.

Christ, the people who wrote that show sure love to beat cliché metaphors to death.

To be fair, Avatar was for six-to-eleven-year-olds. It found an audience outside that age range because other aspects of its writing were actually pretty clever.

It was?  I kinda got that feeling in the first two seasons, but it turned pretty violent as the series progressed.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You could make an argument to this effect, sure, but to do so is sort of to leave your fellow human beings in the lurch.

Christ, the people who wrote that show sure love to beat cliché metaphors to death.

To be fair, Avatar was for six-to-eleven-year-olds. It found an audience outside that age range because other aspects of its writing were actually pretty clever.

It was?  I kinda got that feeling in the first two seasons, but it turned pretty violent as the series progressed.

I think the expectation was that the audience would grow up with the series, like with Harry Potter. Of course, that in itself is sort of questionable considering that Avatar only ran for three years.

[Mopsus]

Pain isn't bad in and of itself, it's bad because it's perceived as a sign of death. Still, the absence of pain isn't necessarily a good thing, as pain can lead you to do things that actually increase your share of life.

[Blue3]

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Says who? Maybe you wouldn't have knowledge of what good is, but you can still experience it.
And even if you disagree with that...

...then what you wrote here in that quote says that you do believe there is some good (in being born) along with the evil.

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That quote isn't about apathy. It's about continuing to care, continuing to see the good, despite any pain it might bring.

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Who said anything about false hope?
And why would it make you weak?
And why would being "weak" for believing in hope (whatever that means) be bad?

I was also thinking of using some "Hope" quotes from Star Wars.

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Sometimes things are cliché because they are true.

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Then you don't understand the quote.

"Your focus determines your reality."

If you focus on the good, then you will be happier than if you focus on the bad.

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Seriously? Talk about missing the point. Her fate is what gives that quote so much more power. We are all mortal, and don't know how or when we'll die.

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And yet the Bible continues that he still saw the good in us, so much that he sent his only son so we may have eternal life, with promises of a kingdom on earth redeemed and healed to come.



I believe that, at the fundamental core essence:
-each person is good
-life itself is good
-the universe itself is good

Life and love are all about
-"seeing"/finding the good
-focusing on and enjoying the good
-trying to preserve the good and/or make more good ("doing good")

[Small L]

Okay, right off the bat, you would be hard pressed to accept this conclusion unless you're a hedonist, since it seems to equate pleasure with good and pain with bad. Even if you accept the argument, there may be other goods that you think tip the balance in the other direction, so the conclusion doesn't follow. Although I think life has intrinsic value, I don't think holding that position is specifically necessary to reject this conclusion. All of this is assuming I understand the argument.

I also don't buy the combo of premises 3 and 4. His three arguments to support them are not particularly convincing to me, since (maybe because I'm not a Hedonist), I don't think there is a categorical "duty not to bring people who will suffer into the world."

[Antonio the Sixth]

Nonexistence means you do not experience pleasure either, but the denial of pleasure is only bad if you exist to experience that.

Sure, and the absence of pain is only good if you exist to experience that. If you don't exist, nothing can be "good" or "bad" for you, because there is no "you" it could be good or bad for! Therefore, you can't make an argument that nonexistence is better than anything (or worse than anything). There is no grounds for comparison.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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Says who? Maybe you wouldn't have knowledge of what good is, but you can still experience it.

[...]

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And yet the Bible continues that he still saw the good in us, so much that he sent his only son so we may have eternal life, with promises of a kingdom on earth redeemed and healed to come.



I believe that, at the fundamental core essence:
-each person is good
-life itself is good
-the universe itself is good

Life and love are all about
-"seeing"/finding the good
-focusing on and enjoying the good
-trying to preserve the good and/or make more good ("doing good")

What is good? It is that which is beneficial.
What is evil? It is that which is harmful.
But...

Beneficial to whom?
Harmful to whom?

While not everything is a zero-sum game, there are many things in which the benefit to one accrues via harm to another. That's the awful knowledge that Man gained by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

What distinguishes the Divine from Man is that the Divine is able to experience how to maximize good for all his creation. Man can at best perceive indirectly and indistinctly how that may be done. The Fall happened because Man incorrectly thought that made Man imperfect to the degree that the Divine could not love or abide Man.

At least that's what the Eden story tells. History shows Man learning how to expand the scope of good and evil from consideration of the good and evil of a single individual (the simplest case and the only one in which good and evil are absolute opposites) to the scope of first the family (am I my brother's keeper) then of the clan, then of the nation, then of humanity, then of all existence.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

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Says who? Maybe you wouldn't have knowledge of what good is, but you can still experience it.
And even if you disagree with that...

...then what you wrote here in that quote says that you do believe there is some good (in being born) along with the evil.

You need to have good in order to have evil and you need to have evil in order to have good, otherwise those terms are meaningless.  That's what I'm saying here.

The pleasure we experience in the world is easily outweighed by pain, because pain is more lasting and powerful and impactful.  Death is what liberates us from that, and death is also the most equalizing force in the world.

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That quote isn't about apathy. It's about continuing to care, continuing to see the good, despite any pain it might bring.[/quote]

Of course.  You can care about the people being harmed by the evil in this world.  That isn't the same thing as loving the world for what it is.

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Who said anything about false hope?
And why would it make you weak?
And why would being "weak" for believing in hope (whatever that means) be bad?

I was also thinking of using some "Hope" quotes from Star Wars.[/quote]

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Then you don't understand the quote.

"Your focus determines your reality."

If you focus on the good, then you will be happier than if you focus on the bad.
[/quote]

The problem is that people choose to romanticize life with all the evil and strife it brings, which is as masochistic as it is irrational.  If you spend your entire life chasing after a mirage, with the expectation that it will be "better" than what you experience now, you are only wasting time and hurting yourself in the process.

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Seriously? Talk about missing the point. Her fate is what gives that quote so much more power. We are all mortal, and don't know how or when we'll die.[/quote]

I'll admit I was intentionally being snarky with that one.  But there was very little beauty around the people who had to share in Frank's fate.

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And yet the Bible continues that he still saw the good in us, so much that he sent his only son so we may have eternal life, with promises of a kingdom on earth redeemed and healed to come.[/quote]

God sees the good in His creation, but that doesn't change the fact that humans are bad at heart because of original sin.  Remember that no one deserves the Kingdom of God.  It is a gift freely given to those who have not earned it and cannot earn it.  I don't know if Hell exists or doesn't exist, but I do believe that all people deserve to go there.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Nonexistence means you do not experience pleasure either, but the denial of pleasure is only bad if you exist to experience that.

Sure, and the absence of pain is only good if you exist to experience that. If you don't exist, nothing can be "good" or "bad" for you, because there is no "you" it could be good or bad for! Therefore, you can't make an argument that nonexistence is better than anything (or worse than anything). There is no grounds for comparison.

But if you don't exist, then you cannot experience pain.  Absence of pain is a given if you do not exist.  It's not supposed to be a question of comparison, of course.

[anthonyjg]

I don't agree with Benatar's premise that pain is an inherently bad thing. All pain all the time is obviously bad, but I believe that a little bit of struggle is incredibly important. The Atlantic had an interesting article a little while back that covered this, (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/theres-more-to-life-than-being-happy/266805/)

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[Antonio the Sixth]

Nonexistence means you do not experience pleasure either, but the denial of pleasure is only bad if you exist to experience that.

Sure, and the absence of pain is only good if you exist to experience that. If you don't exist, nothing can be "good" or "bad" for you, because there is no "you" it could be good or bad for! Therefore, you can't make an argument that nonexistence is better than anything (or worse than anything). There is no grounds for comparison.

But if you don't exist, then you cannot experience pain.  Absence of pain is a given if you do not exist.  It's not supposed to be a question of comparison, of course.

The word "better" in this thread's title implies a comparison. You are claiming that the condition of non-existence is preferable to that of existence. This question only makes sense if you can compare the two conditions and decide which of the two is more appealing.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

This question is nonsensical/pointless

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Nonexistence means you do not experience pleasure either, but the denial of pleasure is only bad if you exist to experience that.

Sure, and the absence of pain is only good if you exist to experience that. If you don't exist, nothing can be "good" or "bad" for you, because there is no "you" it could be good or bad for! Therefore, you can't make an argument that nonexistence is better than anything (or worse than anything). There is no grounds for comparison.

But if you don't exist, then you cannot experience pain.  Absence of pain is a given if you do not exist.  It's not supposed to be a question of comparison, of course.

The word "better" in this thread's title implies a comparison. You are claiming that the condition of non-existence is preferable to that of existence. This question only makes sense if you can compare the two conditions and decide which of the two is more appealing.

So the problem is that you can't experience non-existence and compare that to, well, existence.  But you don't need to in order to understand or comprehend the idea of non-existence.  You know that you didn't exist before you were born.  You have no memory of the time before you entered this world, and that's all that is necessary to know in order to make this type of judgment.  Here we are choosing whether a bad state of consciousness is better or worse than no consciousness at all.

As a person who's suffered their entire life with clinical depression, I can tell you that I feel like I'm in a much better place being asleep than being awake, because it is only when I am awake that I feel real pain.  When I am asleep, I have no knowledge of my surroundings, but for me it is sufficient because I do not experience pain.  (Unless I'm having a nightmare, of course, but that is not a typical occurrence.)

[afleitch]

Nonexistence means you do not experience pleasure either, but the denial of pleasure is only bad if you exist to experience that.

Sure, and the absence of pain is only good if you exist to experience that. If you don't exist, nothing can be "good" or "bad" for you, because there is no "you" it could be good or bad for! Therefore, you can't make an argument that nonexistence is better than anything (or worse than anything). There is no grounds for comparison.

Certainly the period of almost eternal non existence before you pop into existence is not good/bad. But when you pop into existence you can take a different view of it. Some get really freaked out and demand a heaven or a cycle of rebirth or something to follow death that isn't a simple  return to non existence. But you can also not exist (as far as you are concerned) despite existing. The 'you' bit of you is your brain/mind. As far as the 'you' bit of me is concerned I have zero conscious memory of the first two years of my life. It's directly comparable to say, the two years before I was conceived. But I was 'here' (according to other witnesses). The first third of my life has only scattered receding memories which I replay in my mind each time becoming more of a facsimile of what actually occurred. If I succumb to dementia I might lose myself completely. That is frightening; losing 'you' once you know you. If that is a legitimate fear (borne out of 'you') then never having existed might be a legitimate preference even if it can't be morally compartmentalised as good/bad.

[Antonio the Sixth]

So the problem is that you can't experience non-existence and compare that to, well, existence.  But you don't need to in order to understand or comprehend the idea of non-existence.  You know that you didn't exist before you were born.  You have no memory of the time before you entered this world, and that's all that is necessary to know in order to make this type of judgment.  Here we are choosing whether a bad state of consciousness is better or worse than no consciousness at all.

As a person who's suffered their entire life with clinical depression, I can tell you that I feel like I'm in a much better place being asleep than being awake, because it is only when I am awake that I feel real pain.  When I am asleep, I have no knowledge of my surroundings, but for me it is sufficient because I do not experience pain.  (Unless I'm having a nightmare, of course, but that is not a typical occurrence.)

I'm really sorry to hear that, and wish you all the best. Please don't lose hope.

Obviously I'd never presume to speak about your personal situation. I don't think I've ever been clinically depressed (although there was a time when my life was seriously awful, but it was long ago) so I can't know. What I'm taking issue with is the general philosopical argument that you opened this thread with. As Afleitch said, one individual might legitimately prefer non-existence based on their own subjective experience. But that's the point, the existence vs non-existence question can only be answered subjectively. Any attempt to generalize this argument into something that applies to all is bound to run into the logical problems I outlined.

As for the subjective preference, all I can say is that thankfully most people seem to prefer existence. I think this is a case where following the "wisdom of the crowd" might be worth it.

[Blue3]

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Says who? Maybe you wouldn't have knowledge of what good is, but you can still experience it.
And even if you disagree with that...

...then what you wrote here in that quote says that you do believe there is some good (in being born) along with the evil.

You need to have good in order to have evil and you need to have evil in order to have good, otherwise those terms are meaningless.  That's what I'm saying here.

The pleasure we experience in the world is easily outweighed by pain, because pain is more lasting and powerful and impactful.  Death is what liberates us from that, and death is also the most equalizing force in the world.

I know what you're saying. And I'm saying you can still have and enjoy good, without knowing what good/evil are. A child who grows up in paradise, only with a perfectly loving parent who teaches the child well, and the child is perfectly loving back , with no knowledge of any history or outside world. The child doesn't understand good or evil, is never even introduced to the concepts of good or evil. But the child still has and enjoys good, even without awareness of what "good" means because there's nothing to contrast it against.

The pleasure is only outweighed by the pain if you choose it to be. Pain doesn't have to be more lasting, or powerful, or impactful.

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That quote isn't about apathy. It's about continuing to care, continuing to see the good, despite any pain it might bring.[/quote]

Of course.  You can care about the people being harmed by the evil in this world.  That isn't the same thing as loving the world for what it is.[/quote]

Caring, despite the pain, is what makes someone strong. A person continuing to choose love (in spite of every reason to choose otherwise) is what makes some very powerful love.

-each person is good
-life itself is good
-the universe itself is good

Life and love are all about
-"seeing"/finding the good
-focusing on and enjoying the good
-trying to preserve the good and/or make more good ("doing good")

You can see the world this way while still acknowledging the suffering, still seeing the world for what it is.

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Who said anything about false hope?
And why would it make you weak?
And why would being "weak" for believing in hope (whatever that means) be bad?

I was also thinking of using some "Hope" quotes from Star Wars.[/quote]

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Then you don't understand the quote.

"Your focus determines your reality."

If you focus on the good, then you will be happier than if you focus on the bad.
[/quote]

The problem is that people choose to romanticize life with all the evil and strife it brings, which is as masochistic as it is irrational.  If you spend your entire life chasing after a mirage, with the expectation that it will be "better" than what you experience now, you are only wasting time and hurting yourself in the process.
[/quote]

It's not romanticizing it. It's not masochistic. It's not irrational. It's seeing life as it really is.

And for many people, it does get better. Not always, but it does for many people.
(and even for the ones that it doesn't, most still learn from their experiences and enjoy life... "the serenity to accept things you cannot change, the courage to change the things that you can change, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Happiness is a choice and a way of living, not a result, not something to be chased.

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Seriously? Talk about missing the point. Her fate is what gives that quote so much more power. We are all mortal, and don't know how or when we'll die.[/quote]

I'll admit I was intentionally being snarky with that one.  But there was very little beauty around the people who had to share in Frank's fate.[/quote]

Yet she and others still found it.

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And yet the Bible continues that he still saw the good in us, so much that he sent his only son so we may have eternal life, with promises of a kingdom on earth redeemed and healed to come.[/quote]

God sees the good in His creation, but that doesn't change the fact that humans are bad at heart because of original sin.  Remember that no one deserves the Kingdom of God.  It is a gift freely given to those who have not earned it and cannot earn it.  I don't know if Hell exists or doesn't exist, but I do believe that all people deserve to go there.
[/quote][/quote]

Humans are not bad at heart. At heart, their soul essence is created in the image of God.
There is no "deserve" or "doesn't deserve" when it comes to God or heaven or love.
It's simple: we are loved. No notions of punishment or justice. We are saved because we are loved, we are loved because we are good at heart, at our core soul essence, which is love itself.

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Says who? Maybe you wouldn't have knowledge of what good is, but you can still experience it.

[...]

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And yet the Bible continues that he still saw the good in us, so much that he sent his only son so we may have eternal life, with promises of a kingdom on earth redeemed and healed to come.



I believe that, at the fundamental core essence:
-each person is good
-life itself is good
-the universe itself is good

Life and love are all about
-"seeing"/finding the good
-focusing on and enjoying the good
-trying to preserve the good and/or make more good ("doing good")

What is good? It is that which is beneficial.
What is evil? It is that which is harmful.
But...

Beneficial to whom?
Harmful to whom?

I disagree. Goodness exists without regard to a person's utility for it.

[muon2]

I have perhaps a different take on the argument.

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Items 3 and 4 purport to create an asymmetry, but there is a tacit assumption that no observer is needed to assess pain, but an observer is needed to assess pleasure. I suggest this because clearly 4) rests on the notion that pleasure can only exist with an observer, so that without the observer (people) it's absence is not bad. Item 3) clearly assumes that pain or the lack thereof needs no observer.

My issue is that items 1) and 2) make equal weight value judgments about pain and pleasure. Yet value judgments need an observer to assign those values. We are that observer, so with our non-existence the values are not assigned. Without that assignment 4) is still ok, with the understanding that the absence of pleasure is neither good nor bad.  However 3) doesn't follow anymore. Instead the absence of pain without people also has no value assigned and becomes symmetrical with item 4). The antinatal argument fails without that asymmetry between pain and pleasure.

One might argue that there is perhaps another observer other than people to make the value assignment. But either that observer is natural and understands pain and pleasure so falls prey to the antinatal argument and I get a reductio ad absurdum to my conclusion of symmetry, or that observer is supernatural and I can escape the antinatal conclusion by appealing to divine laws.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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Says who? Maybe you wouldn't have knowledge of what good is, but you can still experience it.

[...]

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And yet the Bible continues that he still saw the good in us, so much that he sent his only son so we may have eternal life, with promises of a kingdom on earth redeemed and healed to come.



I believe that, at the fundamental core essence:
-each person is good
-life itself is good
-the universe itself is good

Life and love are all about
-"seeing"/finding the good
-focusing on and enjoying the good
-trying to preserve the good and/or make more good ("doing good")

What is good? It is that which is beneficial.
What is evil? It is that which is harmful.
But...

Beneficial to whom?
Harmful to whom?

I disagree. Goodness exists without regard to a person's utility for it.

My point was that good and evil don't exist without a frame of reference. Only for a narcissist would they be defined by their own personal utility.  Thankfully, you aren't a narcissist.

[Blue3]

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Says who? Maybe you wouldn't have knowledge of what good is, but you can still experience it.

[...]

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And yet the Bible continues that he still saw the good in us, so much that he sent his only son so we may have eternal life, with promises of a kingdom on earth redeemed and healed to come.



I believe that, at the fundamental core essence:
-each person is good
-life itself is good
-the universe itself is good

Life and love are all about
-"seeing"/finding the good
-focusing on and enjoying the good
-trying to preserve the good and/or make more good ("doing good")

What is good? It is that which is beneficial.
What is evil? It is that which is harmful.
But...

Beneficial to whom?
Harmful to whom?

I disagree. Goodness exists without regard to a person's utility for it.

My point was that good and evil don't exist without a frame of reference. Only for a narcissist would they be defined by their own personal utility.  Thankfully, you aren't a narcissist.

I'm not convinced it depends upon frame of reference either.

I believe the core essence of each person, the experience of life in general, and of the universe itself, to be innately Good. That's my belief, my value, my faith. And we must find the good, focus on the good, and do good.