Re: The Optimism Delusion - David Benatar responds to Richard Dawkins.
 

This is expressed with admirable concision and I - more or less - agree with it.

Just a couple of things: If objective truth is unknowable, then how do we know objectivity even exists as a standard by which to denigrate everything else as subjective? Are we not projecting 'objectivity' from our subjectivity and therefore subjectively denigrating subjectivity?

Secondly, while, as I said, your statements above seem to me to stand on firm ground, they do not cover one aspect of the anti-natalist argument. It is easy to argue that living one's own life by delusion is fine - especially if it looks like we can only choose between delusions - but how do we argue that it's fine to pass our delusions on to others by reproducing, especially as suffering (which may or may not be subjectively valuable) is the almost inevitable result?

Thirdly - in case I don't answer any reply (I might not), it will undoubtedly be because I'm gradually but deliberately limiting my internet engagement.

Re: The Optimism Delusion - David Benatar responds to Richard Dawkins.
 

This is my point. We don't. And we may well be.
All we have to go on is our subjectivity, therefore to live one's life by some supposed objective values is an exercise in pointlessness. Hence why I implied that one is doomed to delusion no matter what one believes, and should, to steal Nemonymous' dictum, choose the optimum delusion.

This rests on the assumption that it is worse to have been born than not, and as I said before, this is itself a delusion, and what's more an "illogical" one, in that it deals with unquantifiable attributes such as happiness and suffering.
One cannot say more suffering than happiness makes a life not worth living, because life is not a zero sum game whereby happiness is cancelled out by suffering. Nor can one say that happiness and suffering are the only parameters by which life can be judged.

Yes, by creating a child you are giving it a death sentence, but you are also offering it the rare opportunity to be something real for a while, to experience love, laughter, music, literature, wonder, awe, mystery, comfort, hope, drunkenness, and dreams. And though love may turn to hate, and drunkenness to sobriety, it doesn't change the fact that love and drunkenness were experienced.
And even if one continues to argue that all life's joys are transient, then one must also concede that life's miseries are equally transient.

Whatever happens in life, it will end in death, so all will eventually have back what they started with. No (lasting) harm done.

Whether or not this justifies existence is not for me to say, because it's a subjective matter. Some rue the day they were born, and it is not my place to speak for them, despite sometimes regretting my own life. And how I have suffered -- loves lost, dreams broken, fears realized, intestinal viruses accumulated -- just like everyone else. But on most days, when I really deeply think about it, I have this thought:

If I could've had a conversation with my parents before I was born, and heard from them of all the horror I would experience if I took their hand and stepped out into the world, but also of the other experiences I would have, what would I have done? Remained in the serene abyss of the womb, or taken their hand and that step? On most days, I tell myself the latter, and genuinely believe it.

I understand that this argument will not convince antinatalists, who will rebut me by saying that someone who hasn't been born does not and can not desire anything. But I would argue that if someone steals something of yours you never knew you had but could've one day found, it's still theft.

And in this sense, I could make the argument that not having children is immoral because it is the theft of one's freedom to experience existence . It's a silly argument, I admit, but it uses the same pseudo-logic as arguing that having children is immoral because it causes them to suffer.

In the end, the morality of having a child depends on what the child itself comes to believe. And since most people, however delusionally, would answer that their life is worthwhile, it could be argued that having children is often more moral than immoral, at least when life is judged in simplistic, ethical terms.

Re: The Optimism Delusion - David Benatar responds to Richard Dawkins.
 

Though I have not read Better Never to Have Been, I don't think Benatar argues that life is not worth creating if there is more suffering than happiness. I think he treats suffering and happiness not as on a scale, but as two separate experiences that do not cancel each other out, and therefore need not be quantified in his argument.

Also, it appears to me that all human activity is driven by pursuit of happiness and retreat from suffering. If those experiences did not exist, no one would do anything at all. There would be no human will toward or away from anything. I don't know what the other parameters by which life can be judged you allude to are.

Re: The Optimism Delusion - David Benatar responds to Richard Dawkins.
 

I must also confess that I have not read Benatar's book, and because my time to reply to you is limited, I will have to shamelessly quote from his Wikipedia page:

"[Benatar] argues that coming into existence is a serious harm, regardless of the feelings of the existing being once brought into existence, and that, as a consequence, it is always morally wrong to create more sentient beings".

To me, this "harm" seems to be suffering and death. I'm not sure what else it could be. My point seems to be bolstered by the next paragraph, which states:

"Benatar argues from the hedonistic premise that the infliction of pain is morally wrong and to be avoided all things considered".

My point was that Benatar assumes that suffering (or harm, or pain) negates all the positives of life, that suffering alone can determine whether or not life is worth living. This I disagree with.

Experience is a salient example. See, it seems we will all spend an eternity in the void. But the advantage that the living have is that they will also have experienced what it means to have been alive. Now, if you wish to argue that this experience is only temporary and therefore ultimately insignificant, then you must also concede that the "harm" that Benatar speaks of is also temporary and ultimately insignificant.

Either way, the point I was trying to make is that no one, not me nor Benatar nor anyone else, has the authority to state whether or not the lives of others are worth living. The most we can do is dictate whether or not our own lives are worth it.

This presents a problem, in that it means we don't have the authority to decide whether or not the lives of our children are worth it. We have to let them decide. But in order for them to decide, we have to create them.

In some cases, people will give birth to those who are convinced that life is not worth living, which is unfortunate. But in most cases, I think, people will give birth to those who are glad to be alive, and this, being the most probable outcome, is the thing that could conceivably justify human existence in general.

Re: The Optimism Delusion - David Benatar responds to Richard Dawkins.
 

So the first of these arguments is meant as a serious counter to the antinatalist claim, and the second one is just a joke? That's confusing, since to me they seem to be the exact same argument, except that in the latter instance the absurdity is made more apparent by the shift in perspective.

Re: The Optimism Delusion - David Benatar responds to Richard Dawkins.
 

The second statement is not a corollary to the first. It was written to illustrate the kind of leap in logic that an antinatalist would use to label procreation "immoral".

To clarify, I would not want to have the chance to exist stolen from me. But this doesn't mean that I can then state that non-existence is immoral. (Cf. The argument that "I suffer much in my life, therefore procreation is immoral").

Re: The Optimism Delusion - David Benatar responds to Richard Dawkins.
 

I know Benatar argues that life is not worth creating. I was pointing out that his argument does not rely on relative quantities of happiness and suffering.

Re: The Optimism Delusion - David Benatar responds to Richard Dawkins.
 

Kramdar,

The problem is, when a person has a child, they are stating (by their action) in a very unambiguous and non-agnostic way that the life of another is worth living. For the child, who then has to subjectively endure the choice that their parents have made for them.

Is this not "true"?

Re: The Optimism Delusion - David Benatar responds to Richard Dawkins.
 

Not speaking for Kramdar, but hasn't that always empirically been the case for humanity? Deliberate or accidental. Sometimes culturally encouraged, sometimes just a passionate outcome. All parents seeking - consciously or subconsciously - the crowd-sourced default delusion of purpose having already been given their own fate as someone else's children...and sensing somewhere inside themselves that, as well as being the default delusion, it is also the optimum of all possible delusions.
The empiricality of existence?

Re: The Optimism Delusion - David Benatar responds to Richard Dawkins.
 

No, it relies only on suffering, which gives him less of a leg to stand on, in my opinion.