#107 — Is Life Actually Worth Living？
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Summary
In this episode, I speak with David Benatar, a philosopher who is perhaps the most prominent exponent of a philosophy called Antinatalism, and who argues that existence is worth the trouble, at least for those who don t yet exist. David is a professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and the author of a number of books, including The Harm of Coming Into Existence and The Human Predicament, a guide to life's biggest biggest questions. In this conversation, we discuss his views on the nature of existence, the role of the ego, and other aspects of the moral landscape, including the limits and paradoxes of introspection. We also talk about the relationship between antinatalist philosophy and another position called Pro-Mortalism, the idea that it would be a good thing if we all died in our sleep tonight. And we also discuss some of the troubling paradoxes in Derek Parfit's philosophy, which is a response to the question, "Is life worth living?" by which we ask, "Would you like to live a better life?" or would you rather die in your sleep tonight? This is a very rich conversation, and it's a rich conversation for those of you who like moral philosophy, who like paradoxes, and philosophical philosophy. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope that you find it interesting, and that you do as much as I did, and find it challenging, as it was for me, too. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Making Sense Podcast. -Sam Harris. Make sure to subscribe to the Making Sense podcast to keep up to date with the latest episodes of the podcast. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our sponsorships, so you won't miss out on the next episode! . Make sense of it? If you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming a supporter of what we re doing here? Please consider becoming one of us, becoming a patron of Making Sense, and you'll get a discount on our podcasting membership! - Sam Harris and a chance to get 10% off the first month free shipping discount when you sign up for the next month! . . . and a discount code: MINDING MADE MADE SENSE PRODUCING MONDIEPRODUCER! to get 20% off your first month!
Transcript
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David is a professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
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He's the author of a few books, Better Never to Have Been, The Harm of Coming Into
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Existence, and most recently, The Human Predicament, A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions.
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And he's a philosopher who many of you have wanted me to speak with.
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I've been getting emails and tweets about him for quite some time.
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He is perhaps the most prominent exponent of a philosophy called antinatalism, and you
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will hear much more about that in today's episode.
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The question for David, really, is whether or not existence is worth the trouble.
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And he answers that question with an emphatic no.
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And this makes for an interesting conversation.
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As you'll hear, there are a couple of places where our intuitions diverge, and I think you
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just have to pick which intuition you find most compelling there.
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We talk about the asymmetry between the good and bad things in life, the ethics of existential
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risk, the difference between starting and continuing a life.
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Our built-in bias towards existence and how that may confuse us.
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The relationship between antinatalism and another position called pro-mortalism, the idea
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that it would be a good thing if we all died in our sleep tonight.
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I talk for a few minutes about my notion of the moral landscape, and we also talk about
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the limits and paradoxes of introspection, how viewing your life in a certain way can
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actually change what there is to notice about your life.
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Population ethics is a very rich conversation for those of you who like moral philosophy.
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And it got me to realize at least one thing that resolves for me at least one of the
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troubling paradoxes in Derek Parfit's philosophy.
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So I found it a very valuable conversation, and I hope you do as well.
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So I've been hearing about you for at least a year.
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I plead unfamiliarity with your books, but people have been emailing me about you.
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I think they have read some of your articles, and some undoubtedly have read your books.
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But you have been laying out a philosophy that is quite novel and quite pessimistic and quite
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It really strikes to the very core of the question, is life worth living?
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And your answer to that is a resounding no, at least for those who don't yet exist.
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And no doubt, most of what is interesting in moral philosophy can be brought to bear on this
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Before we dive into your philosophy, give us just a kind of a potted history of what you've
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been doing intellectually and the kinds of questions you've focused on.
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Well, this is one question that I've revisited on multiple occasions and also examined issues
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I suppose my broad interests are in moral philosophy, more specifically in practical ethical questions.
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But often when I look at the practical ethical questions, I'm interested in the theoretical
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And I suppose in this area of prokered of ethics, those two come together quite well.
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Another book that I wrote is called The Second Sexism, which is about discrimination against
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And then I've written on a range of practical ethical questions.
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And you're currently a professor of philosophy.
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So let's just jump in because this really is fascinating.
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Is that a coinage from you or did that view exist before you started working in this area?
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I've been asked that question and quite frankly, I don't know the answer whether I coined the
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Anyway, I've tried to do some sort of intellectual archaeology to find out whether I did hear it
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from somewhere else and I've been unsuccessful.
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But the idea itself, I think, dates back to much earlier times.
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One hears it even in ancient times, the idea that it would have been better never to have
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And a more recent exponent, of course, was Arthur Schopenhauer.
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So these ideas have been around for a long time and that doesn't surprise me.
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There's quite a convergence between your view and Buddhism.
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I'm sure someone must have pointed that out to you at some point.
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Perhaps we'll touch on that because I have a longstanding interest in Buddhism and related
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Well, perhaps I should clarify what the view is first.
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So it's the view that we ought not to bring new people into existence.
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But I think the view is broader that we ought not to bring new sentient beings into existence.
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So it's not just the view that it's harmful to come into existence, but a further view that
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it's also wrong to bring beings into existence.
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And I think there are a range of arguments for this position.
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Some of them I characterize as philanthropic arguments.
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And others, I think, are misanthropic arguments.
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And here, of course, I'm restricting the scope to bringing human beings into existence, although
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I think that parallel points might be able to be made about other sentient beings.
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The original arguments that are advanced are the philanthropic ones.
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And those really are concerned about the being that you'll bring into existence.
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And my view is not only that it's always a harm for that being, but that it's also a very
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And given the seriousness of that harm, I think that it's always going to be wrong to create
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More recently, I've developed some misanthropic arguments.
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And those have to do with the harm that the being you're bringing into existence will do
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And by others, I mean other human beings, but also other sentient beings on the planet.
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And although one's philanthropic and the other is misanthropic, I don't think that these two
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So just to revisit a few of those utterances, lest they blow by and their significance be
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So one of the consequences of your view is that it really is a monstrous crime to have
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At a minimum, it's a colossal act of negligence on the part of people who haven't really thought
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And I mean, it's really, it's kind of analogous on your view to ushering souls into hell because
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existence is either that bad or there's a high enough probability that it will be that
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bad that it's just irresponsible to consign people to the fate of existing.
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And so we need to be careful about that analogy of ushering somebody into hell.
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I love this topic, and I think this will be fun to get into the details here and hear
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But what has been your experience promulgating this idea or set of ideas?
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I can imagine the thesis provokes anger in some people.
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Fortunately, not too many of those have made direct contact with me.
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But one does see a lot of hate mail of a certain kind and, of course, a lot of hate
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But the people who've contacted me tend to be those who have been more sympathetic to
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And one very common kind of response I've received is from people who've had these sorts of thoughts
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and felt that they were entirely alone in the world.
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They thought that they were the only people who thought this.
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And they've drawn a measure of comfort from knowing that there are others who shared that
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One distinction to make here is between pessimism of the sort that you're expressing and nihilism.
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Many people, I think, mischaracterize the position as a nihilistic position.
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And that's one of the reasons why I think it's wrong to bring new beings into existence,
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because they're going to suffer, and they're going to suffer pretty unspeakably.
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Nihilism here would be that basically nothing matters, right?
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In the scheme of things, good and bad are just things we make up, and the universe doesn't
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And therefore, it doesn't really matter if conscious minds get ground up in some inferno
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You want to avoid the inferno, and you want to avoid committing the moral wrong of consigning
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So if you ask me about whether our lives have cosmic meaning, I'm a nihilist about that.
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But I just don't think that it follows from that, that it's okay to inflict suffering on
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I can imagine that people also try to psychologize you.
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They must think that this view is really not so much the product of a valid chain of reasoning,
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Is that a diagnosis you must get hurled at you?
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Yeah, there are lots of people who do exactly that.
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And I think that's exactly the wrong attitude to have.
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I think one should look at the arguments, examine them on their merits, and see whether
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I mean, I find the arguments very interesting, and we will definitely get into those.
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But when I heard about you and your emphasis on this position, I did think that your just
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experience of the world moment to moment, and that would include your mood and everything
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else about you that can be brought to bear on experience, must be coloring the arguments
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or could be coloring your sense of their veracity or moral import.
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And I guess I'll tell you about an experience I had, and I'm just wondering if there's anything
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So I had a friend, not a close friend, but someone who I had met many, many times, and
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this was a person who would email me periodically, who was suicidal.
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At one point, he sent an email to everyone in his life saying, I'm going to commit suicide,
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and, you know, here's your last chance to talk me out of it.
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Put that way, it sounds like a kind of macabre and gratuitous appeal for attention, but it
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was more, he was actually just being scrupulous to not kill himself so impulsively that he
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would leave everyone in his life feeling like, you know, if only they had known, they might
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And so he just, he was going to give everyone in his life a chance to reason with him.
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And it was kind of of a piece with the reasons why he thought he was killing himself.
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He really thought he had reasoned himself to a position where suicide was not only acceptable,
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And, you know, he had a very philosophical, he wasn't a professional philosopher, but he had
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a very philosophical cast of mind, and he was quite smart.
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And, you know, I went back and forth with him a little bit over email, mostly, and the
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experience was one of seeing someone, in my view, mistake his anhedonia, you know, his
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lack of joy in living moment to moment for a kind of philosophical epiphany, which is to
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say if he felt better, if he was feeling more joy, if he was feeling more of a connection to
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other people, he would feel, he would have felt that the results of his reasoning on each
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And I know your argument is not an argument for suicide, I mean, we'll differentiate antinatalism
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But I'm just wondering if you feel that if the character of your experience were significantly
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better moment to moment, if you feel like this philosophical conviction would just kind of
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evaporate or become so uninteresting to you that it would sort of evaporate?
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Well, I don't like to talk about myself, so I'm probably just not going to answer that
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And one is that one ought not to make the assumption that somebody who holds the sort
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of view that I do is thinking about themselves.
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They may be thinking about themselves as well, but they might be just thinking about everything
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So just if you think about the amount of suffering that's going on in the world at any moment,
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you have to be pretty coarse and callous to not take that seriously.
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So it needn't be about one's own experiences, it needn't be about one's own attitudes, it might
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be a sort of sensitivity or an expression of what's going on in the world.
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So you sort of gave an example that's very self-oriented.
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And what I'm suggesting is that's not the only possible way of looking at things.
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It's also possible to arrive at these sorts of views by looking outward and looking and
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And then, of course, the other point is that you spoke about him being anidonic, but there
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are plenty of manic people out there, and their views might be colored by their mania.
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They may be deriving too much pleasure to actually see the world for what it is.
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Yeah, it's hard to know what is normal here, or what is an uncolored lens through which to
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So let's get into the details of your argument.
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So there's actually more than one asymmetry argument, but there is an kind of axiological
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asymmetry, I think, between benefits and harms, between the good things and the bad things.
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And obviously, if we're speaking with inner life, the pains that you have, the other harms
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And the good things that you have, those are good.
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But if we're considering the scenario in which somebody is going to be brought into existence,
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we have to compare the outcome in which they do from the outcome in which they don't exist.
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And in the outcome in which they don't exist, we have to consider the absent harms and the
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And I think that the absence of the harms is good, even though that person won't exist.
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Whereas the absence of the good things in that life is not going to be bad.
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And that's because there's going to be nobody who's going to be deprived of those good things.
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And so the asymmetry is really between the bad and the good in the scenario in which somebody
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So it strikes me, I kind of want to run through each piece of that again, so that to make sure
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that I'm not making a mistake here in reasoning.
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But it strikes me that you're, there's kind of an imbalance here in how you're presenting
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And you could be conjuring the asymmetry in a way.
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So you're saying, and just point out where I go wrong here, you're saying that the absence
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of a good life can't be a harm because there's no one who is harmed.
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There's no person who is deprived of this life.
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Here, you, in my view, you're, you're, you're kind of smuggling the absence of existence in
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You're saying that the prevention of harm is a positive good, even though there is no one
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Is that where you, you're kind of putting the rabbit in the hat?
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Well, a lot of people have suggested that I'm doing that, but the point I'm making here
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is not so much a metaphysical one as, as I say, an axiological one.
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It's about an asymmetry in, of values between the good things and the bad things in life.
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And one of the reasons why I think, first of all, I think this asymmetry is actually
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And I think large numbers of people would accept it if, until they see where it leads.
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But this basic asymmetry, I think, explains some other asymmetries that, that many people
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The large parts of the universe that are uninhabited, there aren't beings there, certainly not sentient
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And if we think about those uninhabited parts of the, of the universe, we're not filled
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with, and nor do I think we should be filled with remorse for the absent goods that they
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So if we think about Mars, for example, where there could be Martians, but they aren't, we
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don't think, gee, think about all that pleasure that those absent Martians could have.
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Um, whereas I think if we think about the absence of, let's say, Martian wars, uh, just
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like we have wars on earth, and we think about the absence of all the suffering there, I think
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It's pretty good that they don't have that there, that there's, that there's nothing like
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That's a, that's an advantage that Mars has over earth.
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But there's no one who doesn't have those harms.
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But, uh, I still think that it's a, it's a good thing that there's the absence of that
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Now, I'll grant you that there are many other possible asymmetries here that we should be
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So, for instance, one thing you claim, or at least I think it's implicit in some of your
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claims, is that there's much more suffering or possible suffering than there is, you know,
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possible happiness, or the, or the, the, the depth of it is, is far greater.
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And so there's, there's an asymmetry between suffering and happiness that is also just,
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But here, I feel like you, you're, you're running afoul of my intuitions here.
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So, and what you just said about the moral significance of canceling possible goods definitely
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stands in opposition to the work of every philosopher who is, who is working on what is called existential
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So you can have philosophers like, you know, Will McCaskill, who will say that the greatest
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possible wrong would be to do something which put our species on track for, you know, self-annihilation.
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And that would be, in large measure, not because of all the suffering that would be caused, because,
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you know, if we're annihilated in, in the right way, it could be completely painless.
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It would be wrong because it would close the door to all of the, the untold goods that
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could come from a billion years of creative involvement with the cosmos.
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If you knew that there was some decision you took today that not only deprived your grandchildren
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from living the most glorious possible life, they just have a, you know, a sort of glorious
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life, but you deprived all of their descendants from even existing and discovering greater depths
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of beauty, people are persuaded, and I'm one of them, that those hypothetical losses are as real
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as the hypothetical gain of, of not suffering if you don't exist.
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So I think that when we think about human extinction, there's something that clouds people's
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thinking. And that's why the moment you think about the application of this asymmetry to human
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extinction, all these other intuitions of the kind of describing come up. That's why the example I
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gave wasn't about human extinction. It was a base of some other species, let's say, on another planet
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that could have been there and isn't there. And we don't spend any time worrying about that,
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nor do I think we should spend any time worrying about the absent pleasures over there.
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When we think about human extinction, there are some confounding variables. The one is
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the mechanism whereby the extinction takes place. So there's a distinction between whether people
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sort of die out or whether they're killed off. And so one way in which we could go extinct is
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through people meeting an untimely end and being killed. But another way is for everybody to die
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peacefully in their beds and for the human species to have come to an end because there was no more
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reproduction. And I think a lot of what's going on with people's intuitions is a mixing up of those
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things. And then I think there's a lot of sentimentality about the human species.
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There's this idea that it's a wonderful species and we'd like it to be around for a long time and
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haven't we discovered and done all sorts of wonderful things and wouldn't be good if that
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whole trajectory of scientific discovery went on. And there's a kind of sentimentality about
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having humans around. And so I think that those sorts of factors confound our thinking about cases
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of human extinction. So I would like to move away from those to think of the application of the
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asymmetry to other cases and see how it works. Granted, some people might be confounded. I don't think
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I am here. In fact, I think there are a few more things to say about just canceling the human career
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that are relevant here. But before we do, I just want to linger on this, what strikes me as a kind of an
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asymmetry that is giving you your first asymmetry here, which is you're accruing a good to non-existent
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beings on one side of your equation where you're not on the other. Do you not see it that way or you
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just think it's justified? No, I do see it that way, but I think it's justified. There is this
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axiological asymmetry. And I think when you do the calculation that follow from that, the cards are
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stacked against bringing somebody into existence. But it's not an artificial stacking. It's one that
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makes eminent sense. I guess it's still not making sense to me. So let's just spend a few more minutes
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on this. So we have a person who could have existed but doesn't. And undoubtedly, there are philosophical
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problems with thinking about possibility as well. I mean, are there these possible things or are there
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simply actual things? And we're actually just misled by our notion of possibility. But leaving
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that aside, I might have had a... I have two children, which already convicts me of a monstrous
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ethical lapse on your account, but we'll leave that aside. But I have decided not to have a third child,
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you'll be happy to know. So this third child will not experience anything good or anything bad.
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And on your account, there's no deprivation to him or her for not being brought into existence
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on account of not getting to do all the good things there are to do. But there is a benefit
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to not suffering all of the inevitable pains of existence. But that benefit doesn't accrue to
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anyone because no one by this description exists. That's correct. And it's impossible,
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of course, if the person doesn't exist for them to enjoy the benefit. But when we're looking at
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scenarios of bringing somebody into existence or not, we're having to compare those two cases,
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one scenario in which they do exist and one in which they don't. And if we want to know what's
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better for that potential person, we need to compare the situation in which they do and the
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situation in which they don't. And we have to compare, obviously, the scenario in which they
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don't exist to the one in which they do and make the interest judgments relative to the world in which
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the person does exist. How would this calculation run for you if existence was on balance, more
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pleasant and wonderful and creative and beautiful, so that every person who comes into existence
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runs a better than even chance of having a life worth living. But still, there are many lives that
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are not worth living. And they come up quite frequently. They just don't overwhelm the lives that
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are worth living. Then how would you think about it? Well, that very phrase, a life worth living,
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I think is ambiguous. And I think it's ambiguous between a life worth starting and a life worth
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continuing. And I think one mistake people make is to not see that ambiguity, because I think different
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standards ought to apply to those two cases. So if at a given time, there's more good in your life
00:26:15.580
than bad, then your life may indeed be worth continuing. I say may indeed, because there's some
00:26:21.120
complexities there that we could revisit later. But I think the bar for starting a life is going to be
00:26:26.800
much higher. Let's stick with the starting of life, because we'll get on to whether life is worth
00:26:31.960
continuing. Let's just say that we lived in a world where at birth, every human being could expect
00:26:39.940
to have a slightly better than even chance. I mean, basically, they're like the house in a casino
00:26:46.200
playing blackjack, right? They have whatever it is, a 52% chance of winning. And winning, in this case,
00:26:52.820
really is winning, right? There's no downside to winning. It's just the 52% of people who have good
00:26:58.360
lives on balance really do have good lives on balance any way you look at them. And then, you know,
00:27:04.260
the 48% of people who don't have negative lives to one or another degree, then how would you think
00:27:11.220
about it? Well, I think even the lives that are good on balance, there's going to be plenty of bad.
00:27:15.800
But let's just stipulate that we live in a world that's kind of like a coin toss. And if the right
00:27:20.160
side of the coin comes up, that is a life on balance, however you want to aggregate benefits and injuries.
00:27:28.160
So I'm not quite understanding the question here, because if the analogy is sort of winning
00:27:33.200
at blackjack, well, when you win, you win. There's no downside to the winning. Whereas when you win in this
00:27:40.000
life lottery that you're speaking about, what I want to get clarity on is, is there no downside?
00:27:44.580
Is this a life of unmitigated good? Or is there some negative as well? And from what you said,
00:27:49.440
I was understanding you ought to be saying that there is some bad as well. It's just that on balance,
00:27:53.960
it's good. I guess there could be some bad, but it is, in the case of the lucky life, it is outweighed
00:28:00.640
by the good. So that each of your pains are manageable enough that when your pleasure comes around,
00:28:06.860
you always feel that it was worth it. And let's just say that you're right to feel that. We've
00:28:12.920
tuned the luck of lucky minds in such a way that life is really good and pain does not overwhelm
00:28:23.720
Okay. You see, when you say that you think it's worth it, are you saying it's worth it to have
00:28:29.660
come into existence or that it's worth it to continue existing?
00:28:32.760
I am, without granting you that distinction, because I'm not sure I agree that exists, but
00:28:38.660
we'll get there. For the purposes of this point in the conversation, I'm talking about coming into
00:28:46.340
existence. So you don't exist and I give you the opportunity to exist. And if you could, if you were
00:28:53.440
one of the lucky ones, you would find yourself in a circumstance that was well worth your time.
00:28:58.580
Well, that I think is a confusion. I grant you that there are many people who say,
00:29:03.600
I'm glad I was brought into existence because I think on balance, it's better
00:29:06.700
that I'm around. I think I'm getting more good than I am getting bad. But I just think that people
00:29:12.140
who hold that view have not thought carefully enough about what the question is. I think that
00:29:17.340
because they already exist, they're biased towards the condition in which they already exist. And so what
00:29:23.180
they're actually asking themselves without realizing it is, is my life worth continuing?
00:29:27.340
But I don't think there's any life that's worth starting. And I think there's no life that's
00:29:36.300
Surely you would grant that if existence were much, much better than it is, in fact,
00:29:42.980
you could imagine a life worth living, right? I mean, what if existence just had no suffering at all
00:29:49.940
in it, right? It was just one leap from creative height to another, and every moment was more
00:29:58.600
So I've considered that possibility. And I think in that scenario, we should be indifferent between
00:30:02.960
coming into existence and not. But I've got to say that that scenario you've imagined is actually
00:30:08.100
pretty hard to imagine in practice. Hard to imagine any real such life. But yes, if we imagine,
00:30:13.280
if you're thinking about hypothetically, a hypothetical life where you come into existence,
00:30:16.340
and there's nothing bad about that, then I would say we are being indifferent between that. And I
00:30:21.740
think we should be indifferent between coming into existence in that condition and not coming into
00:30:26.480
That is a novel view that I have never considered. I'm wondering whether to focus there for a moment
00:30:33.140
before going on to capture some of these loose threads. Let's spend a moment on that.
00:30:38.380
If I posit a kind of godlike paradise for all conscious beings, right? So there really is just,
00:30:47.260
there's nothing wrong in the universe by anything that you can say is wrong, you know, like there's a
00:30:52.920
little ache and pain over here, there's a little dissatisfaction over here. I will just cancel that by
00:30:58.880
saying, no, no, these, those are moments where there's more pleasure flooding in there and more,
00:31:05.500
even deeper sense of meaning, even deeper gratification of one's intellectual life. And
00:31:12.860
these are, these are beings who are far more competent than you and I are to judge the character
00:31:19.860
of their experience. They've had a billion years to consider the matter, and they're still happy to be
00:31:25.000
here. Imagine minds constituted like that. Why should we be indifferent to that and the primordial
00:31:34.280
dial tone of non-existent? See, I think what's dividing us here is the asymmetry, because if you,
00:31:40.380
if you think there is the asymmetry that I'm, that I'm defending, then you'll say, well, there's nothing
00:31:45.740
bad in that Edenic life that you're speaking about, but there's also nothing bad in the situation of
00:31:51.880
non-existence. So that, there they're equal. Now you'll say, but in Eden, there are all these
00:31:58.320
pleasures. And I say, that's great. Because if you, if you're in Eden, it's good that you have those
00:32:03.700
pleasures because your life would be worse without them. But if you've never existed, the absence of
00:32:08.620
those pleasures is going to mean nothing to you. You won't be there. You won't care about it. It
00:32:12.200
doesn't matter that there's, that there's not a being that's having those pleasures. So if you think
00:32:17.100
about, I don't know, Adam and Eve, and then some third character that could have been there, and this is
00:32:22.220
before the fall, obviously, and you say, well, is it, is it a pity that there's not some additional
00:32:27.060
being here that's not enjoying Eden? No, I don't think there's anything bad about that. And I think
00:32:32.300
it's, there's an, there's an indifference, and there should be an indifference. I can see that
00:32:37.300
there's nothing bad about it because there's no one to suffer the absence of, of those pleasures and
00:32:42.720
insights. But again, by the same token, I, I'm, I'm not convinced that you can make the other move
00:32:48.880
you're making, which is to say that there's something good about not having the suffering
00:32:52.720
imposed on you if you don't exist. And if you don't exist, you can't feel the relief of not being
00:32:57.240
tortured because you don't exist. So I feel like that's the, there's a symmetry there of just
00:33:02.620
non-being. Let's come back to your, if it's your third possible child. Let's imagine you were thinking
00:33:09.860
about having a third child and you did some genetic tests and you found out that this child that you
00:33:15.720
could have would lead a life that even by your standards is one of great suffering. And so you
00:33:22.560
decide, well, we're not going to go ahead with this third child. We're not going to have this third
00:33:25.860
child. Do you think that would be a good thing? Yes. And do you think you've got a reason to avoid
00:33:33.780
bringing that child into existence? But the reason is one which is predicated on the existence of the
00:33:43.220
child and therefore the existence of his or her suffering. We're talking here about the absence
00:33:49.000
of a wrong that I'm not committing by bringing this guaranteed to suffer person into existence.
00:33:56.000
So you're imagining some scenario in which this child does exist and is leading a life of suffering
00:34:00.200
and you say, well, I've got a reason to avoid that. Right.
00:34:03.840
Now, let's imagine that you're thinking of having this third child and you do the tests
00:34:10.540
and everything's fine. And so it could turn out like your other children are. And I don't know
00:34:15.120
your children. I hope they're doing well, as well as can be. But let's imagine they're doing,
00:34:19.000
they're doing well. And this third child, the probability is that it'll be like that.
00:34:23.640
Let's just say on their worst afternoons, they'll confirm everything you fear about the nature of
00:34:27.600
existence. On your children, most obviously. Yes. They can complain about the most insubstantial
00:34:34.220
things and you'd be amazed at how much anguish can be provoked by having the television turned
00:34:40.440
off prematurely. Right. But let's imagine that this third child would lead a happy life by your
00:34:46.740
standards. Right. Do you have a reason to bring that child into existence? Well, let's leave aside
00:34:52.000
all the other reasons that no doubt you've considered just, you know, their effect on other people,
00:34:56.400
their effect on me, all that. So just localizing the benefit to the person, yes, I think so. I think
00:35:05.700
that there's, I mean, this comes down to population ethics and topics that I hope we'll touch, but
00:35:12.340
there is a kind of more is better principle here when you're talking about good lives. These are all
00:35:19.060
fascinating questions and they connect to more or less everything that's fascinating. So I'm just trying
00:35:23.580
to resist the slide into philosophy here, but it seems to me that much of what you're saying about
00:35:30.440
bringing people into existence does in fact apply to the continuing existence of existing people.
00:35:39.580
I know you draw a clear line of demarcation there. I'm not so sure you can, and I think this is an
00:35:45.540
additional problem for me here. So how is it not analogous for me to say, well, I have a child,
00:35:51.400
and there was, there was something very, very good that could have happened to her. I could have
00:35:59.060
secured some benefit for her that she doesn't know about, but I declined to do that, right? So she has
00:36:06.980
the life she has, but I could have given her the super enhanced life with really very little effort on
00:36:14.480
my part. You're talking about an existing child. An existing child. But I declined to do that. So
00:36:19.760
now she has her life as it was and was going to be, but it could have been otherwise. And I, you know,
00:36:25.960
for quite capricious reasons of my own, you know, because I didn't want to spend 10 seconds to sign
00:36:31.940
a form or click a button on a website, she does not have this extraordinarily positive thing happen for
00:36:39.820
her. And she doesn't know about it, right? So has she been wronged in any way? And I think most
00:36:47.820
people's intuitions would be yes. And yet on your account, I'm wondering if I, if I could say that.
00:36:55.700
Well, we're talking about a case of an existing child here. And I think there, there are all kinds
00:36:59.520
of other complexities about, about this case. I mean, whether she had some entitlement to your
00:37:05.500
bestowing this benefit, there are all kinds of questions of that kind, but you, you are speaking
00:37:09.620
about an existing child. And so I would say that this child is worse off without this benefit having
00:37:15.220
been bestowed. So whether you've wronged her is another question, but she's worse off than she
00:37:20.800
would have been if you'd bestowed this benefit. But I don't think that a parallel claim can be made
00:37:25.960
about a child that you don't bring into existence. Although if it had come into, into existence,
00:37:31.940
it would have had certain benefits. I think the absence of those benefits because it doesn't come
00:37:37.140
into existence is not bad. And it's not bad because it's not deprived. Whereas your existing child will
00:37:43.440
be deprived of this benefit you could have, you could have given. Another point of confusion for me
00:37:48.580
here is that you acknowledge a spectrum of experience ranging from the very, very positive to the very,
00:37:55.760
very negative. But when you take the zero point of non-existence, you say that we should be indifferent
00:38:02.720
between zero and the very, very positive. Whereas we shouldn't be indifferent between zero and the
00:38:09.000
very, very negative. The very, very negative is worse, obviously, and we should avoid it. And we
00:38:13.620
should choose zero every time over the very, very negative. But we should be indifferent to zero over
00:38:19.860
the very, very positive. But I'm not quite sure how that, that would work in practice. So imagine if we,
00:38:26.000
you know, we're sliding down the ramp of a hedonic experience. We start at the very, very positive and
00:38:33.080
we start, life gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse until it gets truly neutral. And maybe
00:38:39.840
there's other forms of neutral beyond the lights going out. But for at least one form of neutral is
00:38:45.980
not having any discernible experience. And then we just keep on sliding and things get a little bit
00:38:53.260
bad and a little bit worse. And all of a sudden we're in hell. It seems to me that if you're going
00:38:57.760
to preserve the logical integrity of that spectrum, you'd have to acknowledge that better really is
00:39:06.980
See, again, I don't think, I don't think that it is. Um, this assignment of, of zero that you're
00:39:12.900
proposing is something that I've anticipated before. And I've got an analogy to, to deal with
00:39:19.320
a case like, of course, it's an only an analogy. It, um, it can't be a like the case that we're
00:39:24.120
speaking about in every respect. But I imagine these two people, the one is, uh, we call him sick
00:39:29.780
and the other we call, uh, healthy and, uh, sick gets sick. Uh, but he's also got some attribute
00:39:37.200
whereby he recovers quickly from his sickness. Um, healthy never gets sick. I mean, never,
00:39:43.440
never, ever get sick, but he lacks the attribute of quick recovery. So if H were to, were to get sick,
00:39:50.160
he wouldn't quickly recover. It'd be a very slow, um, very slow recovery. Now, what I want to say
00:39:56.480
about sick is that that capacity for quick recovery, that that's good and it's good, uh, for
00:40:03.080
sick, but the absence of that capacity in the healthy person is not a, not a net disadvantage
00:40:11.500
over, uh, over sick because he never has any need for that. Right. And so I think we should say a
00:40:19.200
similar thing about these scenarios, about existing and non-existing and that these absent pleasures
00:40:26.480
are not bad relative to the other scenario. In other words, they're not a net disadvantage,
00:40:30.320
uh, in comparison with the scenario in which the person exists. So I want to resist that sort of
00:40:36.500
attribution of, let's say a zero to, uh, the absence of, uh, the, of the pleasures or the absence
00:40:43.340
of the good things in life. If they're the absent good things of a non-existent person.
00:40:48.560
So not all of my intuitions are being conserved here. I mean, I will say here on, on this point,
00:40:53.420
your, your view is especially Buddhist and for people who might be surprised by that. And I don't
00:41:00.060
know how familiar you are with, with Buddhist philosophy, but I'll just say that on the Buddhist
00:41:05.220
account, existence is the problem. And they have this, obviously this view of, of rebirth and,
00:41:11.740
and karma. And there's what's called a wheel of becoming, you know, life after life,
00:41:16.900
you just can't get off this wheel unless you become fully enlightened. Enlightenment consists
00:41:22.800
in no longer being subjected to this continuous cycle of rebirth. It was obviously a very good
00:41:31.440
reason to, to doubt that picture of existence scientifically, but the core of the ethical
00:41:37.660
view there and the soteriological view, the, the view of, of what it means to be free,
00:41:43.400
is that existence has this intrinsically unsatisfying character. And, you know, this is
00:41:50.760
for reasons that we really haven't gone into yet. It's just the fact that everything is impermanent.
00:41:55.060
You know, your, your pleasures, no matter how good, always fall away and you're left with more of a
00:41:59.580
search for pleasure. There's a kind of an intrinsic dissatisfaction, even in satisfaction.
00:42:05.120
It wouldn't be bad if no one existed. And the fact that people exist in a circumstance that is
00:42:13.520
perfect to frustrate the search for happiness and well-being is the problem. And enlightenment is the,
00:42:21.080
the act of canceling all of the, the kind of the mental properties that would cause one to continually
00:42:27.040
be reborn into existence. So your, your view is very Buddhist without offering the, the methodology
00:42:35.360
of enlightenment, or unless you, you do that. And I, I don't know about it.
00:42:42.040
Exactly. Yeah. But there are a few other wrinkles here in Buddhism. And one is that it's possible
00:42:48.000
through a really deep engagement in, you know, methods like meditation to come to a kind of
00:42:56.460
equanimity that equalizes pain and pleasure to a remarkable degree and to find a kind of intrinsic
00:43:03.100
well-being in just the nature of consciousness. And that does make some of this, some of the,
00:43:08.840
the Buddhist view that I, I just described somewhat paradoxical. I mean, it's not the problem of
00:43:14.560
existence can really go away to a remarkable degree on the Buddhist account. I mean, so that's all just
00:43:20.500
a long way of saying that your view is in, in very good standing with, with certain trends in,
00:43:26.840
in Eastern philosophy, and it just doesn't capture everything they say. But let's take this distinction
00:43:34.380
between the possible lives and the, the existing lives and their interests, because I'm not so sure
00:43:40.600
you're conserving my intuitions there. Why would it be a bad thing for everyone to die tonight
00:43:47.480
painlessly in their sleep? Let's just picture what this entails. So everyone goes to sleep,
00:43:53.700
none the wiser. They don't know this is their last day on earth. There's been no dread in anticipation
00:43:59.380
of the lights going out. But everyone, based on some bad luck or good luck, depending on your view,
00:44:05.980
dies painlessly in his or her sleep. So there's no bereavement. There's no experience of this.
00:44:12.280
There's just the lights going out in 7 billion brains all at once. What could be wrong with that?
00:44:20.420
Well, I think that those of us who do exist have an interest in continuing to exist.
00:44:25.440
We've got an interest in not being annihilated. And the scenario you are presenting is one in which
00:44:30.420
we are annihilated. Why do we have an interest in being reborn tomorrow from the womb of sleep
00:44:37.680
if existence is, as you say, such that bringing people into it is a terrible crime?
00:44:47.320
Well, I think the analogy is not correct. I don't think we are reborn. I mean, we're reborn in a
00:44:52.440
metaphorical sense, but not literally. I think there are all kinds of things that are going on in our
00:44:56.560
sleep. We're continuing to exist in a kind of dispositional state. Our interests in continuing
00:45:02.640
to live are surviving through that period of sleep, as are many of our desires and our preferences.
00:45:09.960
And I think if we die in our sleep, one of our interests is a very important interest, at least
00:45:14.840
one, if not many, have been thwarted. I can't see how we have any more interest
00:45:19.840
than a new being would. Again, you have to imagine just canceling all of the usual problems with
00:45:30.100
people dying, right? They don't know they're going to die, so there's no imposed suffering
00:45:35.240
in advance, and there's no one around to suffer their loss. There's no grief. There's not even a
00:45:41.280
single neuron in a single brain disposed to grieve about what's happened because no one knows that it
00:45:48.620
will happen and no one's around to know that it has happened. How is that not analogous to
00:45:53.840
someone not coming into existence on the next day? Because somebody who doesn't exist, I think,
00:45:59.520
has got no interest in coming into existence. But somebody who already exists has got an interest
00:46:04.700
in not ceasing to exist. Now, one thing I should add here is that I think these two uses are separable.
00:46:10.600
In other words, the asymmetry argument that I've given before and the argument that I'm giving you now,
00:46:14.700
these are two separate arguments. So it's possible for an antinatalist to also be a pro-mortalist of
00:46:20.440
the kind that you're suggesting. So if somebody thinks that a painless death, or let's say death
00:46:25.620
itself, is not bad for the person who dies, and then we add all the stipulations that you've added,
00:46:30.900
if somebody thinks that, then they'd say there's nothing wrong with the scenario. There's nothing bad
00:46:34.760
about the scenario you've described. But that's a separate view from the asymmetry that I've been
00:46:41.560
presenting. So you can have the asymmetry that I presented earlier, and then you can either
00:46:46.440
couple that with the view I'm offering now about ceasing to exist, or you needn't couple it with
00:46:52.120
that. That's precise to the point. I don't see how you can keep them apart. If existence has the
00:46:59.240
character that you say that it has, and I would grant you, you're on very firm ground thinking that
00:47:06.020
pains are worse than pleasures, and that there are more of them. And we can talk about that. But
00:47:10.720
if it really is bad to be brought into the world, and not just a little bad, it's really,
00:47:17.540
really bad, then I don't see how that doesn't extend to the moral character of waking up the
00:47:26.960
next day. And if I can give you a situation where there are no ancillary harms accrued by somebody
00:47:35.100
dying. And implicit in everything you're saying about existence is the claim that all of these
00:47:42.200
canceled goods of future people don't mean anything, right? I mean, there's no moral weight
00:47:48.700
to place on all the good things that could have happened had humanity continued, because these are
00:47:54.180
hypothetical goods that accrue to no one. How is it that having everyone die painlessly in their sleep
00:48:00.980
wouldn't be, on your account, a good thing? And in fact, perhaps the best possible thing we could
00:48:07.640
imagine having happened. Like, if you could do it, if you could push that button, you would be a moral
00:48:14.240
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