Is Human Existence Worth Its Consequent Harm?

[Taberey]

Several years ago Oxford University Press published a book titled Better Never To Have Been: The Harm Of Coming Into Existence. It was written by David Benatar, a professor of philosophy from the University of Cape Town

Here is an overview:

Professor Benatar appears genuinely to believe that we are all harmed, and fairly seriously harmed, by being brought into existence and that it would really be better, and better for us, had we never been born. He argues that human lives are, in general, much less good than we think they are and that we are systematically and significantly mistaken about their value. Life is that bad, he says, and he bases this judgment on certain logical principles along with empirical evidence of the allegedly poor quality of life that most of us are forced to endure in this world. Among the consequences is that no more humans should be born, and the human race (and other sentient creatures) ought to become extinct.

We spend most of our lives with unfulfilled desires, and the occasional satisfactions that are all most of us can achieve are insufficient to outweigh prolonged negative states. If we think that this is a tolerable state of affairs it is because we are, in Benatar’s view, victims of the illusion of pollyannaism. This illusion may have evolved because it helped our ancestors survive, but it is an illusion nonetheless. He shows that there are a number of well documented features of human psychology that explain why people overestimate the quality of their lives and extensive data on the inclination to viewing life as being very good. If we could see our lives more objectively, we would see that they are not something we should inflict on anyone

He stresses that we need to distinguish what gives us pleasure once we are already here. He makes a clear distinction between coming into existence and continuing to exist so he does not recommend suicide. It’s important to have a better life rather than a worse life once we are here. But this is a separate question from whether starting a life is a good thing because whenever you start a life you are creating a center of suffering, a being who will suffer and suffer a great deal. Whatever pleasures that being has that will mitigate in some way the pains but the pain that we created was completely unnecessary. Again, the relevant question is: once you consider the two alternatives of never existing or coming into existence, there are certain advantages to never coming into existence that don’t apply in the other direction.

Consider pleasures and pains. Most lives contain both, to varying degrees, but there is an unfortunate asymmetry between these that seems to apply to even the best of lives. The upshot of this is that there is much more pain than pleasure. For example, while the most intense pleasures, such as sexual or gustatory ones, are short-lived, the worst pains have the capacity to be much more enduring. Indeed, pleasures in general tend to be shorter-lived than pains. Chronic pain is common, whereas there is no such thing as chronic pleasure. Moreover, the worst pains seem to be worse than the best pleasures are good. Anybody who doubts this should consider what choice they would make if they were offered the option of securing an hour of the most sublime pleasures possible in exchange for suffering an hour of the worst pain possible. Almost everybody would put much more emphasis on the avoidance of this pain, even if it entailed the forfeiture of the pleasure. This is not to say that people are unwilling to endure some lesser pains for some greater pleasures. Instead it shows only that the best pleasures do not offset the worst pains, at least of comparable duration.

This asymmetry applies not only to pleasures and pains but also to goods and bads more generally. Consider how an injury can be incurred in a split second and the effects felt for life. While it is true that we can also avoid an injury in an instant, we do not gain benefits that are comparable in their magnitude and longevity in a mere moment. A lifetime of learning can be obliterated by a cerebral stroke, but there are no comparable events in which one acquires as much knowledge and understanding so speedily and easily. One can lose a limb or an eye in a few seconds, whereas gaining mobility or sight, where it is possible at all, never occurs so rapidly, effortlessly or completely. A life in which benefit came quickly and effortlessly, and harm came only slowly and with effort, would be a fantastically better life.

*************

Whether you agree with his conclusions or not — and he accepts that few probably will — his arguments force one to examine deep seated presumptions about the value of life and the moral significance of human existence.


3 questions:

1. Can one defeat his arguments logically?

2. If so where are his flaws?

3. Or conversely, if you agree with him, why?


I think he does present a strong and philosophically interesting case for his conclusions. In a nutshell: he argues for his thesis by drawing attention to an alleged asymmetry between pain and pleasure (both understood broadly): Non-existence implies the absence of both pains and pleasures, but whereas the absence of the pains is something good, it is not the case that the absence of the pleasures is bad or something to be deplored. A potential person is not deprived of anything by not being brought into existence.

Let’s be clear:

Benatar is not complaining about existence being meaningless. The problem of the meaning of life is of no concern to him. It is the pain, the harm, the misery of existence that is the central problem of his book. In principle, life could be meaningless but painless none the less. (Indeed, life could even be meaningless and yet very pleasureable - at least this is what critics of hedonism have claimed since Plato.) These are logically distinct concepts. It is important not to confound them if one wants to understand Benatar's arguments and conclusions.

[Hjarloprillar]

From the scan of of 'assumtions' as you have posted.
All seem subjective.

may i say that subjective is all about the people, who try to be objective.. and fail.

What is objective.
Is that humanity has one quality
One skill or talent.

which is actually 2
Reason and imagination.

I am a historian. I know the horror of what we can be.
Also the heights of wonder at men in a tin can with the processing power of a $5 Taiwanese watch going to the moon

Have faith.
Not in a god.. but in our minds.

Prill

[Hrvoje Butkovic]

I have recently taken part in discussing a similar topic on another forum. Two of the posts that I think are the most pertinent to the quoted text are this one and this one. I hope you find the discussion helpful.

[a Shark]

David Benatar is undoubtedly correct in pointing out that happiness is an illusion and we can see how humans attempt to build “happiness constructs” around them all the time and how this often fails .

Humans believe that life is the pursuit of happiness when in fact life is the pursuit of reproduction and anything else is a makeshift apparatus .
Reproduction is the genuine article and happiness is a human construct which is susceptible to
the elements . It is a feature of depressive illness that the perception of happiness is laid bare and the individual fails to be enlivened by the sparks that energize what we have come to understand as happiness and contentment.

Humans constantly seek signals in the environment that may indicate a source of happiness.
The social fascination of fame and celebrity is formed of the belief that someone somewhere is having a whale of a time and doing exciting things which we “average people” are excluded from.
This ,of course ,is another simple human delusion.
UK DJ Chris Evans was once quoted as saying, that you spend your life trying to get to
the top and when you arrive ,you find that there’s nothing there.
The fact that these celebrities are the frequent victims of drugs and alcohol is testimony
to their inability to sustain happiness via the artifice of distraction.

In his book “Hollywood” writer Charles Bukowski stated that he spent his life hanging around bars
waiting for something to happen , but it never did.
His attempt to write a film of human social life terminated in the film Barfly in which the main theme was alcoholism and discontent. Here is a case of a writer seeking a “plot” in the affairs
of humans and the conclusion is that true life has no plot.

Every bank holiday weekend there are legions of people attempting to escape from
the barren nature of existence. The irritation planted squarely on their expressions
is a reminder that they cannot find stimulation in the shoddy constructs of human distraction.
What disturbs humans is the emptiness that is discovered when the fabric
of existence is pulled away.

The human model is inseparable from the figment of self deception.
As philosopher John N. Gray pointed out “ humans cannot live without their illusions”.
But what about the argument that it is better not to have lived at all.
For some brutal lives this must be true .
For those whose illusions sustain them through life ,whether they lived or did not live ,
is hardly worthy of debate.

In the end, humans are merely a drift of genetic material and their happiness is just a superficial
occurrence . The argument that humans would be better off not existing can be applied to Dolphins with no adjustment in moral thought .
The arrogance of humanity is in believing that humans are a higher form of life and, in such
an arrangement as this, that they can escape from the wilderness that other animals inhabit.

The anxiety of humanity is found in this misconception ; that we humans can make something of our lives beyond our mere animal existence . Busy humans and humans at play ; whatever form this may take, it is no more significant than that Dolphins seek food and mates and chase ships.


a Shark , May 2013

[a Shark]

A very good post and remarkable that few have offered a response.
I think that he is correct .
In terms of being happy or unhappy I take Schopenhauer's view that
it doesnt matter, either way, when you are dead what you life amounted to.

As for life itself there is no core to it I would summise.
There is in fact nothing there except the absurd creations that humans invent to
make something of the world.

[henry quirk]

It must be awfully frustrating to Benatar that so many folks insist in 'persisting'.

Yeah, I can look around and see all manner of miseries and burdens and horrors and wonder how the folks subject to those miseries, burdens, horrors 'go on'.

Yeah, I can assess that the lives of those folks just can't be worth spit.

And still, those same folks insist in 'persisting', each finding a reason or reasons to 'go on'.

[Hjarloprillar]

A very good post and remarkable that few have offered a response.
I think that he is correct .
In terms of being happy or unhappy I take Schopenhauer's view that
it doesnt matter, either way, when you are dead what you life amounted to.

As for life itself there is no core to it I would summise.
There is in fact nothing there except the absurd creations that humans invent to
make something of the world.

I particularly like his comment. [obs]

"Humans will invest herculean amounts of of energy and effort to avoid doing one thing.
thinking"
in fact more effort than it would take to to think.

this is called ..stupid.
------------------------------------
As to human existence and harm..
what a stupid question.

[Kuznetzova]

3 questions:

1. Can one defeat his arguments logically?

2. If so where are his flaws?

3. Or conversely, if you agree with him, why?


I think he does present a strong and philosophically interesting case for his conclusions. In a nutshell: he argues for his thesis by drawing attention to an alleged asymmetry between pain and pleasure (both understood broadly): Non-existence implies the absence of both pains and pleasures, but whereas the absence of the pains is something good, it is not the case that the absence of the pleasures is bad or something to be deplored. A potential person is not deprived of anything by not being brought into existence.

Let’s be clear:

Benatar is not complaining about existence being meaningless. The problem of the meaning of life is of no concern to him. It is the pain, the harm, the misery of existence that is the central problem of his book.

This type of philosophy is called Efilism, and there is a softer version of it called Anti-natalism.
This is a system of ethics where the best course of action is the extinction of the human race from the universe. Efilism may or may not include the extinction of all life. Anti-natalism is a softer position where having a child is moral evil because you have brought someone into the world of suffering against their will.

This topic was promulgated for many years by an infamous youtube personality known as Gary Inmendham. Many other people in the youtube vlogosphere made videos, mostly in response to Inmendham, who acted as the pace setter of the discussion.

• http://www.youtube.com/user/inmendham/videos
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssYvVqM_CHg
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJOGBejqOmQ

[Kuznetzova]

he argues for his thesis by drawing attention to an alleged asymmetry between pain and pleasure (both understood broadly): Non-existence implies the absence of both pains and pleasures, but whereas the absence of the pains is something good, it is not the case that the absence of the pleasures is bad or something to be deplored

.

Gary Inmendham has covered this base already. Instead of the pleasures of the world being some "high, aesthetic, noble goal"-- he will instead say these pleasures are merely addictions. That the fundamental biophysical process of pleasure is synonymous with addiction, (perhaps even the same neuronal pathways.) The Inmendham philosophy characterizes life as fundamentally the replication of genes, relying heavily on Dawkin's 1976 book, The Selfish Gene.

For Gary, biological life a process of consumption, reproduction, and addiction. The genes are not themselves motivated to reproduce, but merely by statistical law, those which do reproduce will inherit the future. Pleasures do not serve as a conduit to higher, nobler goals for the human mind in some aesthetic or significant manner. Rather, pleasures are just addictions whose primary goal is the replication of genes.

In this sense, there is a duplicitous trap to life. On one side, we can all agree the suffering is bad and must be reduced. While on the opposite side, even the pleasures have a shameful, guilty aspect.

[tbieter]

It must be awfully frustrating to Benatar that so many folks insist in 'persisting'.

Yeah, I can look around and see all manner of miseries and burdens and horrors and wonder how the folks subject to those miseries, burdens, horrors 'go on'.

Yeah, I can assess that the lives of those folks just can't be worth spit.

And still, those same folks insist in 'persisting', each finding a reason or reasons to 'go on'.

Given Benatar's basic contention that nonexistence is preferable to existence for all sentient beings, is he logically obligated to advocate for acts of suicide and homicide?

[Terrapin Station]

Professor Benatar appears genuinely to believe that we are all harmed, and fairly seriously harmed, by being brought into existence and that it would really be better, and better for us, had we never been born.

Value assessments are subjective.

He argues that human lives are, in general, much less good than we think they are and that we are systematically and significantly mistaken about their value.

Which makes a statement like this nonsense. You can't get valuations right or wrong.

Life is that bad, he says, and he bases this judgment on certain logical principles

A philosophy professor believing that valuations can somehow be implied by logical principles is an embarrassment to the profession.

[A_Seagull]

Benatar should have been a comedian.

What a loss to Vaudeville! lol.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Several years ago Oxford University Press published a book titled Better Never To Have Been: The Harm Of Coming Into Existence. It was written by David Benatar, a professor of philosophy from the University of Cape Town

Here is an overview:

Professor Benatar appears genuinely to believe that we are all harmed, and fairly seriously harmed, by being brought into existence and that it would really be better, and better for us, had we never been born. He argues that human lives are, in general, much less good than we think they are and that we are systematically and significantly mistaken about their value. Life is that bad, he says, and he bases this judgment on certain logical principles along with empirical evidence of the allegedly poor quality of life that most of us are forced to endure in this world. Among the consequences is that no more humans should be born, and the human race (and other sentient creatures) ought to become extinct.

We spend most of our lives with unfulfilled desires, and the occasional satisfactions that are all most of us can achieve are insufficient to outweigh prolonged negative states. If we think that this is a tolerable state of affairs it is because we are, in Benatar’s view, victims of the illusion of pollyannaism. This illusion may have evolved because it helped our ancestors survive, but it is an illusion nonetheless. He shows that there are a number of well documented features of human psychology that explain why people overestimate the quality of their lives and extensive data on the inclination to viewing life as being very good. If we could see our lives more objectively, we would see that they are not something we should inflict on anyone

He stresses that we need to distinguish what gives us pleasure once we are already here. He makes a clear distinction between coming into existence and continuing to exist so he does not recommend suicide. It’s important to have a better life rather than a worse life once we are here. But this is a separate question from whether starting a life is a good thing because whenever you start a life you are creating a center of suffering, a being who will suffer and suffer a great deal. Whatever pleasures that being has that will mitigate in some way the pains but the pain that we created was completely unnecessary. Again, the relevant question is: once you consider the two alternatives of never existing or coming into existence, there are certain advantages to never coming into existence that don’t apply in the other direction.

Consider pleasures and pains. Most lives contain both, to varying degrees, but there is an unfortunate asymmetry between these that seems to apply to even the best of lives. The upshot of this is that there is much more pain than pleasure. For example, while the most intense pleasures, such as sexual or gustatory ones, are short-lived, the worst pains have the capacity to be much more enduring. Indeed, pleasures in general tend to be shorter-lived than pains. Chronic pain is common, whereas there is no such thing as chronic pleasure. Moreover, the worst pains seem to be worse than the best pleasures are good. Anybody who doubts this should consider what choice they would make if they were offered the option of securing an hour of the most sublime pleasures possible in exchange for suffering an hour of the worst pain possible. Almost everybody would put much more emphasis on the avoidance of this pain, even if it entailed the forfeiture of the pleasure. This is not to say that people are unwilling to endure some lesser pains for some greater pleasures. Instead it shows only that the best pleasures do not offset the worst pains, at least of comparable duration.

This asymmetry applies not only to pleasures and pains but also to goods and bads more generally. Consider how an injury can be incurred in a split second and the effects felt for life. While it is true that we can also avoid an injury in an instant, we do not gain benefits that are comparable in their magnitude and longevity in a mere moment. A lifetime of learning can be obliterated by a cerebral stroke, but there are no comparable events in which one acquires as much knowledge and understanding so speedily and easily. One can lose a limb or an eye in a few seconds, whereas gaining mobility or sight, where it is possible at all, never occurs so rapidly, effortlessly or completely. A life in which benefit came quickly and effortlessly, and harm came only slowly and with effort, would be a fantastically better life.

*************

Whether you agree with his conclusions or not — and he accepts that few probably will — his arguments force one to examine deep seated presumptions about the value of life and the moral significance of human existence.


3 questions:

1. Can one defeat his arguments logically?

2. If so where are his flaws?

3. Or conversely, if you agree with him, why?


I think he does present a strong and philosophically interesting case for his conclusions. In a nutshell: he argues for his thesis by drawing attention to an alleged asymmetry between pain and pleasure (both understood broadly): Non-existence implies the absence of both pains and pleasures, but whereas the absence of the pains is something good, it is not the case that the absence of the pleasures is bad or something to be deplored. A potential person is not deprived of anything by not being brought into existence.

Let’s be clear:

Benatar is not complaining about existence being meaningless. The problem of the meaning of life is of no concern to him. It is the pain, the harm, the misery of existence that is the central problem of his book. In principle, life could be meaningless but painless none the less. (Indeed, life could even be meaningless and yet very pleasureable - at least this is what critics of hedonism have claimed since Plato.) These are logically distinct concepts. It is important not to confound them if one wants to understand Benatar's arguments and conclusions.

His flaws are in his basic assumptions for which there is no objective warrant.

How about this. Since humans have led to the extinction of more species than in any million year period since the end of the Mesozoic era, their appearance on earth has achieved a net reduction in the suffering of all those creatures that would otherwise have been born.

How about this. Suffering is good; represents the keenest of all experiences, and on a Universal level is not harmful. Since humans suffer, and being most sentient of all the creatures has meant that the most exquisite types of suffering has to come into being since the dawn of time. So more and more sensitive and intelligent humans means more suffering and more goodness.

Shall I go on?

[Hobbes' Choice]

If you want some REAL suffering from Benatar, just listen to this.........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5kisPBwZOM

[tbieter]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vy6am9gopY
Above is eight minutes of "professor" Benatar. His discourse shows a degree of incoherence that makes one question his rationality. And he displays a degree of Dickens character Professor Thomas Grindglad in Hard Tines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUbS8PsEzXc
Above is Benatars "fair economics"