The Optimism Delusion - David Benatar responds to Richard Dawkins.
 

The Optimism Delusion
by David Benatar

In the first of our three pieces responding to Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, David Benatar suggests that Dawkins is preaching 'the gospel of secular optimism'.


Richard Dawkins seems to take a special pleasure in puncturing what he calls 'the God delusion', the delusion that there is a God. That basic idea and even many of the details are not new. Atheism has had many earlier proponents. What Professor Dawkins brings to these matters is his own accessible and flamboyant style, and the Dawkins branding.

In debunking theism in more than one of his books, Professor Dawkins reveals his own delusion - namely, a bad case of optimism. Optimism is the delusional belief that things are (or were, or will be) better than they really are (or were, or will be). Optimism can take various forms, but the relevant one here is optimism about humanity and the human condition. It is a delusion much more prevalent than theism. It blinds most people - both theists and atheists. Professor Dawkins is no exception.

For example, noting how amazingly small the chance was that any one of us would come into existence, he marvels at how lucky each one of us is to have been born. He suggests that wasting even a second of our lives is a 'callous insult to those unborn trillions who will never be offered life in the first place'. Elsewhere he says that we are lucky that we are going to die because most 'people are never going to die because they are never going to be born'. These 'unborn ghosts' 'outnumber the sand grains of Arabia'.

Although most people share his view that they have been bestowed a great good by being brought into existence, it is a thoroughly confused idea. Coming into existence can only be a good fortune if the alternative would have been worse. Yet the alternative is not bad at all - indeed it is much better than existing. Although one would not have experienced the joys of life had one never come into existence, one would not then have been deprived of those goods - quite simply because one would not have existed. In other words, there would have been nobody who would have been deprived. In contrast, by coming into existence we suffer the many harms for which existence is the precondition.

Optimists tend to forget just how much pain and suffering there is in the world. Professor Dawkins, for example, says that we 'live on a planet that is all but perfect for our kind of life', noting that it is neither too warm nor too cold, and that it contains both water and food. He is correct, of course, that our planet has the minimum conditions necessary to sustain life (at least for the moment). However, it is far from 'all but perfect'. Most people, most of the time, are too hot or too cold - not too hot or too cold in order to live, but rather too hot or too cold for comfort. Natural disasters and infectious diseases kill millions. The planet is not to blame for all our ills, however. Our own bodies fail us, causing vast amounts of suffering. There are millions of victims of human evil. Even the luckier inhabitants of our planet suffer much discomfort, pain, anxiety, disappointment, fear, grief, death and much else, All of these harms could have been avoided if the people suffering them had never been brought into existence. The belief that people are benefited by being brought into existence is, then, an extremely harmful delusion, for it only encourages the creation of further generations of suffering people.

The deeply deluded will deny that life is even nearly as bad as I have suggested. Such protestations are unreliable. There are well-established features of human psychology that lead most people to underestimate how bad the quality of their lives is. Chief among these psychological features is 'pollyannaism', an inclination most people have towards optimism. Research has shown, for example, that people selectively recall the good more often than the bad, overestimate how well things will go, and tend to think that the quality of their life is above average.

It is curious that Professor Dawkins seems so unaware of these optimistic biases, given their obvious evolutionary explanation. Those with the right dose of delusion are more likely to produce offspring, whereas those who see the human condition for what it is, are unlikely to want to reproduce it. Optimistic delusions, within a normal human range, are thus adaptive. The delusions that help people cope with the human predicament are often theistic, but they are not always so. Professor Dawkins is quick to debunk the theistic consolations and to begrudge those who seek comfort in them. Yet he does not cast the same critical light on his own delusions and consolations.

He speaks rapturously about the 'feeling of awed wonder that science can give us', saying that it 'is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable'. Yet this secular equivalent of religious awe is no guarantor of life's meaningfulness. It is no proof that a Godless world is a meaningful one. Just because the universe and human life lack the meaning that theists often say a God would bestow on them, does not mean that the void has to be filled by some secular alternative. It might simply be the case that our lives are pointless. To ward off this conclusion, Professor Dawkins makes the common suggestion that one's life is 'as meaningful, as full and as wonderful' as one chooses to make it. But that assumes that subjective meaning is the only meaning our lives require. However, if that were the case, then a religious life could have immense meaning even when it is founded on delusions - because such lives too are 'as meaningful, as full and as wonderful' as the people living them choose to make them. It is one kind of delusion to think that one's life has meaning because it fits in with God's plan when, in fact, there is no God. It is another kind of delusion to think that one's life has meaning because it fits in with one's own plan when, in fact, one is mistaken that one's own plan can endow (the right kind of) meaning.

These are complex matters and they obviously cannot be explored in full here. It is curious, though, that Professor Dawkins preaches his gospel of secular optimism without feeling the need to engage seriously with philosophical pessimism - the ultimate delusion buster.


David Benatar is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and the author of Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (Oxford, 2006)

- Think, Issue 16

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

As I recall, Dawkins is a biologist with an interest in human genetics. More people = more potential data for genetic studies. He doesn't care if they're suffering, as it doesn't impact his research.

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

I don't normally post on here, but I felt the need to chime in, because I feel Benatar has misunderstood Dawkins' position. Firstly, Benatar assumes that Dawkins is against delusion per se. This is incorrect. Dawkins has stated many times that there is no objective meaning to his or anyone else's life. Therefore, I'm sure he is aware that his wonder at the universe is ultimately dishonest. But he accepts these kind of 'benign' delusions as necessary for motivation and therefore a (relatively) fulfilling existence. Does religion give people a fulfilling existence? Sure. Is it necessary for the continuance of the human species? Dawkins would argue that it is actually inimical to the continuance of the human species, and here's where he differentiates between his delusions and those of religious people. According to him, there is a *big* difference between the kind of delusion that allows you to go on living, and the the kind of delusion that causes you to try and convince people that they must love someone in the sky or burn for eternity. Dawkins' beef with this latter kind of delusion is that, according to him, it force-feeds the population with harmful memes (akin to mind-viruses) that spread throughout a populace, impinging on such things as freedom of speech and scientific progress. As a scientist, his only way of dealing with such memes is by trying to refute them at a logical level, though he does often resort to illogical, human arguments too (he's not a computer, after all). Benatar, as a philosophical pessimist, seems to paint himself as a follower of the "ultimate delusion buster", but if he is going to accuse Dawkins of indulging in delusions, he'd do well to recognize his own delusions -- namely, that it was worthwhile writing a rebuttal to Dawkins, or continuing to satisfying his hunger, thirst and other feelings that are all ultimately illogical. Furthermore, Benatar speaks of the delusion of optimism, but fails to see any delusion in pessimism. The whole idea that misery allows one to see clearly is specious at best. It seems to me that the human mind is hardwired for delusion, even at its most glum. It evolved, after all, not to comprehend the world, but to survive it. Moreover, no one can say with certainty whether or not life is better lived, because that is based on a subjective value judgement. Stating that non-existence is better than existence because there is more suffering in a human life than happiness is simplistic and illogical, because suffering and happiness are feelings, and therefore outside the remit of proper logical discourse. Nor is life just a matter of happiness measured against suffering. It is also a question of simple experience -- it could be argued, however agonistically, that it is better to have experienced pain than to have not experienced anything at all. In conclusion, Benatar misrepresents Dawkins as an enemy of delusion, when he is in fact an enemy of a very specific kind of dogma. And if Benatar doesn't in fact misrepresent Dawkins, then he is just as guilty of his own allegations as Dawkins.

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

I was going to post something in defense of Dawkins (not nearly as well as Kramdar has). I think DoktorH is a little off on this one. Having read some of his books and watched more than a few of his lectures and debates on Youtube, Dawkins is not as clinically detatched as some make him out to be. He is happily married and with a daughter. He marvels at the universe, not unlike Sagan did. Both atheists, btw. And he has spent his most recent years, not with his beloved science, but trying to help save humanity from self destruction via superstition.

Nice post, Kramdar. Hope to read more in the future.

And good get on the OP, sundog.

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

Reminds me of

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

Great post overall.
That bit is eminently logical.

But logic is only one power source. Others to take into account: brainstorming randomness reaching its own truth, the unknown power of Art, Spirituality and other sources not yet discovered or defined.

A quote from my review of CATHR in 2010:

"And a chink of light: the author cites many ingredients of a depressed human in his views on the world, one being that he sees that “The image of a cloud-crossed moon is not in itself a purveyor of anything mysterious or mystical;” - but what, I ask, if that cloud-crossed moon is truly mystical (even when the view of it by the depressed human is initially that it is unmystical), will the human being then gradually feel the lifting of his depression once the moon’s intrinsic mysticism starts to sink into him involuntarily?"

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

Some religions spread the meme that people will burn in hellfire for sins.

Everyone who has children creates people who can experience the living hell of being burned alive.

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

We need the Optimum Delusion, instead of the Optimism Delusion, if such a delusion were possible.

Perhaps that's what we've already got?

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

A passage from a Thomas Mann work as quoted by Alex Ross in his book 'The Rest is Noise':

"Strange regions there are, strange minds, strange realms of the spirit, lofty and spare. At the edge of large cities, where street lamps are scarce and policemen walk by twos, are houses where you mount till you can mount no further, up and up into attics under the roof, where pale young geniuses, criminals of the dream, sit with folded arms and brood; up into cheap studios with symbolic decorations, where solitary and rebellious artists, inwardly consumed, hungry and proud, wrestle in a fog of cigarette smoke with devastatingly ultimate ideals. Here is the end: ice, chastity, null. Here is valid no compromise, no concession, no half-way, no consideration of values. Here the air is so rarefied that the mirages of life no longer exist. Here reign defiance and iron consistency, the ego supreme and despair; here freedom, madness and death hold sway."

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

Agreed.

Since objective Truth is unattainable to any human being, it follows that no matter what one's position -- whether Christian, Humanist, Antinatalist -- it is always wrong.

Therefore, in my opinion, Truth (or the claim to it) should not be used as the guiding principle of one's life. Such a thing would be akin to navigating by the light of a shooting star.

So what does that leave?
Happiness, love, beauty, and experience.

Although each of these are transient and objectively untrue, the acquisition of them generally feels good. That is enough for me, and I'll gladly live a lie if it means I can, every so often, be moved by the sight of the constellations, or my girlfriend's smile, or other such nonsense.

After all, if I choose to see stars and smiles as simply balls of burning gas and a configuration of facial muscles, I'll still be no closer to Truth. So why bother depressing myself?

Besides, whether or not one accepts Einstein's block theory of time (famously referenced in Slaughterhouse Five), every moment of perceived beauty is immortalized by the fact that it occurred at all.

This is all just another delusion, of course. But it is has enough subjective truth to it to provide me, at least, with a path through this bewildering labyrinth.

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.

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

Yes, but my point was that more often than not, people are happy to be alive.

As for those cases where a person suffers so much that they wish they hadn't been born -- and I've felt like that many times, being a former antinatalist myself -- they are the price that must be paid so that others may be free to experience.

I know what I'm saying sounds cruel, but free societies work in much the same way -- crimes (and hence great suffering) are the price paid for the people to be free. One has the option of less crime only through autocracy, dictatorship, totalitarianism.

And, at the risk of sounding facetious, if life gets too unbearable for the tragic few, there's always death to look forward to.

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

Nemonymous,

Of course.

I know that people are animals, and, well, just people, so they have kids in the burst of love, lust and so on. I know it's not (usually) a calculated decision to expose another person to existence.

It almost seems like you are trying to smother any objections under the "empiricality of it all", though.

What I was trying to get at in my comment was that I see a flaw in his logic, where he repeatedly asserts that no one has the authority to state for another whether life is worth living, but doesn't acknowledge that having a child is precisely that.

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

Kramdar,

Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, eh?

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

When I had my first child over 40 years ago, I was not 'stating' anything consciously, as far as I recall.
But everyone can interpret my actions how they feel. Much like the Intentional Fallacy vis a vis literary criticism.
And not intending to smother anything...

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

Nemonymous,

You seem like a good fella who loves his kids. Apologies for the "smothering" thing.

Sorry if I'm a bit distracted now, I'm crying crocodile tears for all the unborn who had life stolen from them.

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

I see what you did there.

But I could just as easily accuse you of being dictatorial in your insistence that no one has the right to life.

And you say that by having children, you are deciding for them that their life is worth living. Nope. You are simply giving them the choice to decide for themselves. Anyone who decides that life isn't in fact worth living can opt out at any time.
But no one can opt in.

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

Forgive me if I sound snide, but I think you fail to consider the implications of your own argument. What is the antinatalist's claim? Simply that there can be no harm in not existing. In response to this you say that there is such a thing as harm caused by being denied something one might enjoy. In order for this to be a refutation of the antinatalist view, it must apply to those who do not (yet) exist. Thus there is one harm that can be experienced even in non-existence: the harm of being refused entry into existence. From this it follows that refusing to bring people into existence is harmful, or as you put it, "not having children is immoral because it is the theft of one's freedom to experience existence". Hence my belief that your two statements amount to the same thing.

The basic problem, as I see it, is that language encourages the slip from non-existent to existent people. Confuse the two just once, and suddenly the universe will be crawling with unborn children who wail and gnash their teeth, and of course they too deserve to experience the taste of cold cherries on a hot summer day, surely there is no harm in that, quite the opposite in fact, etc. The thing to keep in mind is that no harm can come to "those" who do not exist, not even a kind of harm which "they" never experience.

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

Your point is the exact same one I used to make, once.
But again, you're assuming that harm is the be all and end all of existence. What about pleasure? What about experience?
Sure, I get that denying these things to something that doesn't exist may seem inconsequential, but what if that potential person would have otherwise gone on to become an actual person who wanted the chance to live?

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

Let me get something straight.
I think procreation is neither moral nor immoral.

I do however think that deciding for others whether procreation is moral or immoral is immoral.


I did not intend to imply that procreation is moral, or that antinatalism is immoral, only that morality or immorality can be shoehorned into anything, and that there is no *objective* morality or Truth to antinatalism, as Benatar suggests there is.


So Jeff, wipe your eyes, there's really no need for the crocodile tears.

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

Kramdar,

Ahhhh... fair enough.

You hit my soft spot. I think the subject (antinatalism) is important (and categorically different from how you portray it) , but I don't care for moralizing (since I've seen how easily it can be used to justify cruelty). I disagree a lot with you, but I'll let up for now.

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

Jeff,

I would be curious to hear how I have misrepresented antinatalism, as I used to call myself something of an antinatalist (I subscribed to the ideas in TCATHR, and those espoused by Schopenhauer, Zapffe, etc).

Also, I would like your take on a little conundrum.

A man believes that non-existence is preferable to existence. At night, when his loved ones are asleep, he puts a rag soaked in cyanide to their noses, and they peacefully pass away, never to experience harm again.

Did he act true to his beliefs? Would not acting how he did have been moral cowardice?

I personally believe so. After all, the man's loved ones were not conscious when he killed them, so there was nothing to kill. He merely prevented them from becoming conscious ever again.
To have allowed them to awake to the horror of another day would not have been in line with his beliefs, I believe.

(Please don't infer from this that I think you should kill those you love. I'm merely interested in your answer, because it will tell me a lot about your approach to antinatalism).

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

Kramdar,

You caught me at a vulnerable time. I've been crying about something for a long time. I'm pretty much emotionally destroyed.

How's this: I'll tell you how I think you misrepresented antinatalism, and what I would do in your conundrum, if you tell me how you came to see through antinatalism, or whatever.

At the moment, I'm a wreck, and wondering why it's me who has to answer these kinds of questions, instead of the people who actually bring others into the world, this world that can be a nightmare (not saying it necessarily is one for everyone).

I want to ask questions of parents like: "who the hell do you think you are, that you bring other people to life who have no say in the matter?!"

No, of course it's people like me, who have to answer difficult questions about their consistency in philosophical matters. "If you really believe that non-existence is better than existence, would you kill your loved ones to spare them from life, etc."

It must be nice for people who just breed, or do whatever they want to do, without having to account for their actions. Because they are innocents, apparently.

Sorry. You actually asked important questions. I'll get to them soon.

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

But, there certainly is something to kill in that situation-the culmination of life experiences up to the point of death, an event which does not exist in the choice to not procreate. Mr. Man is also taking his loved ones away from all the people that loved them, causing more suffering. Oh, and what about the people surrounding those people? Their pain causes more pain to the people who are emotionally invested in them as well. It goes on. Ripple after ripple. Murder and suicide are incredibly nasty ordeals that end up affecting more people than one would think and from what I have read of Benatar and other antinatalists around the internets, they understand this more deeply than the pro-lifers.

So, did he act true to his beliefs? Well, I don't know. Antinatalism does not imply non-existence by all means necessary. It is a very specific form of non-existence and I think this distinction needs to be understood. You can't say that just because Mr. Man believes non-existence is preferable to existence he immediately gets the green light to start murdering people out of "self-respect". In my opinion, if Mr. Man was at a point in his life where he felt murder was, unwaveringly, the only option, then the only "self-respecting" thing he could have done was to take his own life instead of the lives of others. But, if this truly was the only viable option to him, then I would have certainly questioned his mental health. The lives of others are not his to take regardless of his personal beliefs. I don't really care how you cut it. Antinatalism is not a justification for murder or suicide. Also, if "loved ones" also means children, then the only self-respecting choice he could have made doesn't exist for him. He blew it by choosing to create children in the first place.

The big difference I see between non-existence via antinatalism and non-existence via murder is that with the former, there is no pain, no suffering and nothing to lose except the experience of having a child(arguably one of the most selfish choices a human can make. But, leaving that one alone). With the latter, pain, suffering and emptiness are experienced in their fullest, affecting everyone and everything that has had even the slightest memorable experience with the deceased. I recently became an uncle and being somewhat of an antinatalist I have given quite a bit of though to the creation of that little fella. If my nephew was to be murdered tomorrow, I honestly don't know how I would handle it. Even though he is not my own, I really cannot express in words the love I have for him. Now, I think back to a couple of years before he was conceived. Was I suffering because of the non-existence of an unknown, uncreated child? Was my sister mourning the non-existence of her sole, unknown son? Could my sister be labeled a murderer of an unknown, non-existent being 2 years prior to his arrival? Am I a murderer of all the potential children I will not father throughout my lifetime? Do these questions sound laughably silly to anyone but myself? Given what I know of my nephew right now I could have never imagined him being the curious little man that he is. He is a wonderful life experience that I am glad to be partaking in. But, for me to say that somehow I was mourning the lack of his presence in my life 5 years ago is silly because it makes absolutely no sense. What does sadden me though is knowing the potential life has to beat him down and make him suffer at any moment for no reason whatsoever, regardless of his character. And yes, there will be wonderful experiences for him. But, negative experiences are always the most character-defining ones, and from my experience and observation, the ones that affect people the most. YMMV.

One last thing. It seems to me that people who support the idea of procreation speak of the unborn as if they actually exist somewhere, hollering and flailing behind a pane of glass like a mob of poor beggars hoping someone sees them them so they can be chosen, and that by not procreating, an antinatalist is denying them of something they want and need. For this moment, I will grant the pro-creators this view. If this was the case then it would imply another world beyond this physical one that actually had a purpose for the this experience of it. So, why this situation then? Why are we humans thrown to the wolves, given consciousness to fully experience the gnashing and gnawing and then be required to enthusiastically want to bring others through the same experience? It isn't just about happy/sad, good day/bad day types of experiences. Something is seriously wrong here on a foundational level. From the galaxies to the stars to the smallest creatures of this planet, the entire framework upon which it all rests seems to be comprised of the perpetual chain of destruction, consumption and decay, all violently and perpetually cycling through this hollow nothingness. But, as stupid as we humans are and as little as we actually know I understand there is always the desire and ability to look at the positives in light of not ever fully being able to understand all the details of the game we have to play. But, what we can collectively observe is pretty darn heavy; heavy enough to make a great deal of people stop in awestruck discontent at some of the possibilities and ask what the freak is going on here.

Anywho, thanks for your posts, Kramdar.


-Note: Apologies for getting off topic.

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

I have found this thread very thought-provoking. My view is that individuals in the main often just do things without thinking about the exterior interpretation or self-interpretation of their actions.
This thread is important in adumbrating (in various shades) the necessity of understanding that every action is significant and, as far as possible, should be considered and weighed rather than doing it on impulse. But, then again, our whole life is made up of actions that we do instinctually, some of the minor ones of which - like going out at 8 am rather than 8.30 am - could have far-reaching butterfly-effects, far more effect possibly than those actions one carefully (pre-)considers to be important or crucial to one's beliefs etc.
In the meantime, I know I should try to give off human empathy or sympathy to those here and elsewhere in distress. SO many of them, I sadly do not have enough of me to share out such hopefully healing thoughts, even if I specifically could know (about) each and every one of the individuals in such distress. I know, at the age of 65 as I now am, it is possible, even likely, that I will become, relatively soon, one such individual in distress, myself.

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

Jeff, I understand, and there's no need to reply to me.
Cnev has done a good job of that.

Cnev, I have to say I actually agree with much of what you say here. However, there are a few issues:

I'm not convinced by your answer to the conundrum. I never claimed the man's loved ones had anyone else that would miss them. Let's just assume they're all a bunch of hermits. Or, let's assume he killed both his loved ones and all their loved ones and so on, till no one was left. If you think this is unfair, I'll point out that if you judge the morality of murder based even in part on the suffering of the victim's loved ones, then it is less immoral to murder someone who has no loved ones than someone who has loved ones.

So, let's assume the man and his loved ones were hermits. Then your argument becomes solely that a being that has accumulated experiences should not be afforded the mercy of being killed in its sleep, and should therefore be forced to endure the myriad cruelties of existence, because, for some inexplicable reason, no one has the right to kill. I fail to see any logic here, only emotion. After all, if life is just about suffering, why doesn't anyone have the right to free someone they care about of that suffering? (Remember, in this case, the act of murder itself engenders minimal suffering of its own.) I always assumed that we humans disapprove of killing because we value life. If one does not value life, one cannot logically disapprove of killing.

But I've been an antinatalist for long enough to know I won't be able to convince you of this, and since this is a touchy subject, I'll assume you disagree, and we'll move on.

Before we do, however, I want to clarify my position. I am not a "breeder" (though I have nothing against those who are). Therefore, I feel I am neither qualified nor required to speak for them. And, so that yet another person doesn't get confused by my previous posts (prominently that the unborn are thieved of existence), I'll state once again, they were simply me playing devil's advocate to show that an argument can be made for anything's morality.

In order that you understand where I'm coming from, I will establish what I, as an antinatalist, understood to be the basic tenets of antinatalism, and whether or not I still agree with them. Each antinatalist movement has its own tenets, but the following are the ones I personally believed, and which, if I'm correct, should be common to all.

- This is a brutal, monstrous, alien world. (I generally agree)
- There is more suffering in existence than happiness. (I agree)
- Suffering is the default state of life. (I partially agree)
- Harm can only befall a living thing. (I agree)
- Living things fool themselves that there is a meaning to their existence. (I agree)
- Living things have needs that cannot be addressed by life. (I partially agree)
- Knowledge of all these points gives me the authority to speak for the entire human race, and to call for it to stop breeding. (I strongly disagree)

My reasons for strongly disagreeing with the last point have already been given, but for clarification, I'll give them again.

• Antinatalists assume that the worth of life is an objective metric that can be logically determined.

• Antinatalists assume that harm is the sole determinant of life's worth.

• Antinatalists assume that they have access to a special knowledge denied to the rest of us that allows them to dictate our decisions for us. As Benatar believes (according to Wikipedia) ". . . 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". The majority of people on this Earth would disagree with this view, and they were all born, once, and therefore have just as much authority regarding life's pros and cons.

• Antinatalists assume that Truth has inherent worth, and is attainable.
  

• Antinatalists assume that the only reason the masses believe life is worth living is because they are delusional. They fail to see that delusion is a necessity of life, and hence that every living thing, including all antinatalists, are delusional, and therefore ill-equipped to make sweeping statements about life in general.

In short, I can no longer adhere to antinatalism because I feel it makes too many assumptions about the world. You said yourself, Cnev, that we humans understand very little about this universe, and yet you feel qualified to make prescriptive statements for the whole human race. You may feel I have misrepresented you, and as I've said before, it is not my place nor my intention to speak for you or anyone else, only to point out that you can't speak for anyone but yourself either. Anyway, I have only stated here what I personally understood by antinatalism, and what I, as an antinatalist, believed. If I have misrepresented your beliefs here, please correct me.

I'm not sure I'll respond again, though, as it's getting tiring repeating myself. Anyhow, I'd like to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread as it has nevertheless been a pleasure engaging with you all.

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

Okay, I couldn’t resist looking through the thread one last time, and one antinatalist argument I don't feel I have responded to well enough is perhaps the biggest one of all:

The unborn never ask to be born.

This seems true enough. But the corollary is:

The unborn never ask to not be born.

This latter statement is true in precisely the same way as the former statement.

The unborn do not desire life, but neither do they desire nothingness. To say "well, the unborn do not desire anything, so let's just leave them that way" may seem the better decision for those few unborn who would otherwise have manifested to think the transient "harm" of living overrides all other considerations, but it would just as easily be the worse decision for the many unborn who would have otherwise gone on to believe that the experience (good and bad) of existence is better than the perpetual ignorance of the void.

I understand that many of you find it laughable that something that does not desire could ever be *denied* an opportunity to exist, but it is equally laughable that something that does not desire should ever be spared a Hell it doesn't desire to avoid.

Sure, if that unborn being became an actual, desiring being, both of these arguments would no longer be laughable, and would actually hold true. The being could now recognise that it wasn't denied an opportunity to exist, and find comfort in this, as people like Richard Dawkins do. Equally importantly, but less likely, the being could now recognise that it wasn't spared the opportunity to exist, and find misery in this, as many here do.

Either way, we are in no position to decide what the unborn want, because they can't want -- to bring them into this world or to leave them out of it is equally problematic (or unequally, depending on your point of view).


Thanks again for your time and your comments, and for those of you who are miserable right now, you may be cheered up by a certain film I watched recently called Sleep Tight (2011). It's a dark Ligottian film from Jaume Balaguero (who did the Ramsey Campbell adaptation The Nameless). I can only describe this film as a blackly comical cross between The Bungalow House and My Work Is Not Yet Done. If you hate life right now, this might just be the film to watch.

Anyway, sorry for the off topic... And now I think I'm well and truly done with this thread.

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

I still don't see how leaving the unborn out of this world is problematic at all. Existence is necessary for anything to be problematic.

Lack of happiness is not problematic for the unborn.

Lack of suffering is not problematic for the unborn.

Presence of happiness and suffering is impossible for the unborn.

Lack of happiness is not problematic for those who exist unless this lack brings about suffering.

Lack of suffering is not problematic for those who exist.

Presence of happiness is not problematic for those who exist.

Presence of suffering is problematic for those who exist.

Only in the last case is there anything problematic. (Suffering brought about by lack of happiness is presence of suffering.)


I think the valuation of existence for happiness over the prevention of the problematic (or, with antinatalism, the other way around) is a fundamental value difficult to address with intellectual arguments.

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

Again, you fail to recognise that the antinalist argument doesn't rely on there being actual entities who feel one way or another about the prospect of existence. Talk of the unborn and so on is just a kind of linguistic shorthand. The antinatalist may say that the unborn suffer no harm by remaining unborn, but what she actually means is that there can be no pain where there is no subject to experience it. For this claim to work she needs non-existence to be simply nothing and nothing else, since if there is an absence of everything, then the absence of subjectivity and hence of harm is included in that. Most people seem to think of non-existence in a similar way, which is why the shorthand of "the unborn" works often enough: people understand the argument along the same lines as the antinatalist, even if for various reasons they disagree with her conclusion. Now, you turn the shorthand on its head, but in doing so you violate the metaphysical assumptions supporting the argument: now the absence of everything includes the presence of a desire for something. The counterargument fails as a reductio because, rather than expose a contradiction within antinatalism, it introduces a contradiction from without.

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

Kramdar:

I agree with some of your arguments (see below) but disagree with the "unborn" bit. Along the lines of what Viva June and Cnev wrote, I would add the following: You reify nonexistence into personhood -- into a number of individual personhoods that could be infinite (why not bring cloning into the argument?). But the only way these potential entities have a seemingly rights-bearing conceptual existence is by backwards projection from people who actually do exist -- as when you imagine yourself as forlornly remaining unborn. But in that case it is you the living person who feel that you have a right to exist and you who project this strong sense of selfhood into the time before you actually existed. I can feel the emotional pull of your argument, but I don't think it works ontologically. The first paragraph of Nabokov's Speak, Memory conveys the emotional sense of your argument with power and eloquence:

“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour). I know, however, of a young chronophobiac who experienced something like panic when looking for the first time at homemade movies that had been taken a few weeks before his birth. He saw a world that was practically unchanged-the same house, the same people- and then realized that he did not exist there at all and that nobody mourned his absence. He caught a glimpse of his mother waving from an upstairs window, and that unfamiliar gesture disturbed him, as if it were some mysterious farewell. But what particularly frightened him was the sight of a brand-new baby carriage standing there on the porch, with the smug, encroaching air of a coffin; even that was empty, as if, in the reverse course of events, his very bones had disintegrated.”

I love the word chronophobiac.

I do agree with the following parts of your argument, with some quibbles:

Quote:

In order that you understand where I'm coming from, I will establish what I, as an antinatalist, understood to be the basic tenets of antinatalism, and whether or not I still agree with them. Each antinatalist movement has its own tenets, but the following are the ones I personally believed, and which, if I'm correct, should be common to all. - This is a brutal, monstrous, alien world. (I generally agree) - There is more suffering in existence than happiness. (I agree) - Suffering is the default state of life. (I partially agree) - Harm can only befall a living thing. (I agree) - Living things fool themselves that there is a meaning to their existence. (I agree) - Living things have needs that cannot be addressed by life. (I partially agree) - Knowledge of all these points gives me the authority to speak for the entire human race, and to call for it to stop breeding. (I strongly disagree) My reasons for strongly disagreeing with the last point have already been given, but for clarification, I'll give them again. Antinatalists assume that the worth of life is an objective metric that can be logically determined. Antinatalists assume that harm is the sole determinant of life's worth. Antinatalists assume that they have access to a special knowledge denied to the rest of us that allows them to dictate our decisions for us. As Benatar believes (according to Wikipedia) ". . . 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". The majority of people on this Earth would disagree with this view, and they were all born, once, and therefore have just as much authority regarding life's pros and cons. Antinatalists assume that Truth has inherent worth, and is attainable. Antinatalists assume that the only reason the masses believe life is worth living is because they are delusional. They fail to see that delusion is a necessity of life, and hence that every living thing, including all antinatalists, are delusional, and therefore ill-equipped to make sweeping statements about life in general.

Quibbles:

"The majority of people on this Earth would disagree . . ." This type of argument is usually a fallacy, for obvious reasons. I think it's probably fallacious in your use of it, too. The majority isn't necessarily right about anything just because it is the majority.

"Antinatalists assume that Truth has inherent worth, and is attainable." As you phrased it, this is probably unobjectionable, but I want to object to what I perceive to be the drift of it. Here (and in other posts in this thread) you seem to verge on pyrrhonism -- skepticism of the most radical sort: who knows anything about anything? I am sometimes drawn to pyrrhonism myself, and tend to be more skeptical about truth-claims than most (this irritates people of a strongly ideological bent). But an appeal to all-embracing skepticism is unconvincing, and I think unnecessary to your argument. After all, there are many truths we can and do know with some degree of confidence; for instance, who is more likely to be closer to the truth about the age of the earth, a geologist or a biblical literalist? A more qualified skepticism would still enable you to persuasively dismiss what you call "sweeping statements about life in general."

A side-note: Your preference for disregarding metaphysical truth-claims is, as a personal preference, just as defensible as a striving toward unattainable truths. But I think it may have caused you to read the excellent Thomas Mann quote (thanks, Nemonymous) in a way that is is opposite to my reading of it. Here is the Mann quote again:

"Strange regions there are, strange minds, strange realms of the spirit, lofty and spare. At the edge of large cities, where street lamps are scarce and policemen walk by twos, are houses where you mount till you can mount no further, up and up into attics under the roof, where pale young geniuses, criminals of the dream, sit with folded arms and brood; up into cheap studios with symbolic decorations, where solitary and rebellious artists, inwardly consumed, hungry and proud, wrestle in a fog of cigarette smoke with devastatingly ultimate ideals. Here is the end: ice, chastity, null. Here is valid no compromise, no concession, no half-way, no consideration of values. Here the air is so rarefied that the mirages of life no longer exist. Here reign defiance and iron consistency, the ego supreme and despair; here freedom, madness and death hold sway."

If this is a pursuit of "optimum delusion" (in Nemonymous' words), it seems to me a pursuit of the delusion that one can reach an optimum not necessarily of Truth but of artistic vision -- a pursuit that leads one beyond the bounds of everyday life; an unappeasable longing for the ineffable, a self-destructive obsession. But while you say you agree with Nemonymous' quoting of this in the context of "optimum delusion," your own notion of optimum delusion seems to be a prudent, epicurean in the living of everyday life. This is an eminently sane way of living in the face of our ignorance of metaphysical reality, but it seems to me to be the opposite of the sense of Mann's quote. Mann's rebellious artists are subjective, yes, but they're not accepting and enjoying their human limits as your post implies you do; they're wrestling with "devastatingly ultimate ideals."

A side-note within a side-note: qcrisp's strong pursuit of subjectivity is also, I think, different from the adaptive subjective satisficing that I have perhaps unfairly imputed to you. But I should say that my sense of what qcrisp means, which could be wrong, is taken not only from his post in this thread but from my reading of some of his fiction and blog posts, too.

I do mostly like the section of your argument that I quoted above. This has been an interesting thread.

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

Oh God. Not another turn of this carousel. Your plan's working, guys.
I'm starting to think it may have been better to have not been born...

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm not the one making the *objective* claims here. I'm merely disputing the antinatalist's claims to objectivity.

gveranon:
I'm not a Pyrrhonist (I find this line of thinking self evidently false). I merely believe it is subjectively self-evident that claims to *objectivity* are unattainable. Call it philosophical Idealism if you will, although in practice I'm more of a Physicalist myself.

Viva June (Hilariously ironic name for an antinatalist, by the way):
How you came to the conclusion that I claimed a non existent entity is capable of desire is mind-boggling. I claimed only that a non-existent entity has the potential to manifest into a being capable of desire. If you have any knowledge of the creation of sensate people from insensate gametes, this will be self-evident to you.

Grayhouse:
I meant problematic in that we cannot give all potential beings what they would have wanted if they became actual. Some who never wished to be born will be, some who would've been thankful to have been born never will be.


All 3 of you:

This carousel really is getting tedious now, but I can't bear to be misunderstood, so I'll try to clarify my answers to all your questions below.

Your argument, I assume, goes like this:

(1) Non-suffering is the ultimate Ideal.
(2) Subjective experience is required for suffering.
(3) Therefore, subjective experience is an affront to the ultimate Ideal.

Proposition (3) rests on the validity of propositions (1) and (2) (The premises). (2) is self evident. As for (1), since this is also a premise of your syllogism, it must be either self-evident or demonstrably proven externally or by (2). It cannot be proven by (3), as antinatalists are wont to do, as this would be circular reasoning. (1) is neither self evident, nor proven externally or by (2). Therefore, the syllogism fails.

But this isn't gonna be enough for you, is it?

So let's consider some other ways of looking at the problem. So you still maintain that those who were never born won't miss being born because they are nonentities, and that this proves that it is okay to deny all would-be children their lives. Fine. But this rests on another assumption: hypothetical entities lack the potential to become actual entities. See, you are ignoring the being that each of those nonentities would have otherwise manifested into. You think it's okay to ignore these potential entities because they are not yet actual entities? They are only not actual entities in a universe ex post facto the banning of procreation. You are not considering the world independent of your own *potential* actions. You do not know whether the beings you would deny life to would have wanted life or nonexistence, so you can't say that depriving them of life is what they would have wanted as the person they would've been *if not for your actions* (this is what distinguishes this case from all the infinite unborn/potential beings you are not responsible for).

Equally, you cannot say that *As things stand, the unborn want nothing, so it's all okay*, because you've assumed that nothingness ( which is objectively valueless) in and of itself is objectively more valuable than desire. Since desire is an irreducible aspect of existence, In order for your claim to hold true, desire must be assigned an objective, negative value inversely greater than the entire sum of all life's experiences. This would require you to enumerate and assign numerical value to every possible experience in life, and requires illogical assumptions that I've elucidated in previous posts and won't repeat here.

So can you, with a straight face, say you *objectively* know that it is better to have not desired than to have desired?
Do you *know* that deep in their heart of hearts, all actual and potential people hold (or would've held) the exact same ideals as you, and believe (or believed) lack of suffering is the Greatest Good possible?
Or do you just think you know better than all actual and potential people?

"If I don't let it become a person, I don't have to care what it would have wanted. It will become a palimpsest on which I can write whatever the Hell I want! Love? Pah! Experience? To Hell with it! If I *deliberately* don't let that being come into existence, I can speak for it, and proclaim that what I want for it is what it would've wanted."

"So?" I hear you say. "From its subjective perspective of nothingness, it has lost nothing, because it desires nothing." Sure, from its subjective nothingness, it has lost nothing, but from our objective, living standard (the standard by which you claim to speak for everyone) it has lost something -- the opportunity to have become real and experienced somethingness, and to have brought unfathomable joy to its childless mother and father, and to have decided for itself what it wanted. In your ideal world, you are responsible for its nonbeing, because it was prevented from coming into being by a calculated plan of action on your part.

By your logic, If I kill someone painlessly -- let's say a hermit in her sleep -- she would have lost nothing because she would have become a nonentity by the fact of her death. But that's not how it works is it? By Law If you commit a crime that causes the dissolution of the victim's life -- its somethingness -- your crime isn't voided because the victim had no subjective experience of your crime. The Law assumes that there is an objective morality (much like you do) by which the subjective experience (or lack thereof) of the victim doesn't need to be taken into account when determining that a murder has happened.

Sure, the Law contradicts itself by failing to arrest those who chose not to have children, or had an early abortion, but I'm not speaking in favour of the Law in any way. I'm calling shenanigans on you and the Law equally, because you both make subjective claims to objectivity.

"Oranges and Apples", I hear you scream. "You can't compare someone who hasn't yet been born with someone who is dead." But come on, there is no logical difference between the two. Both are nonentities who had (or have) the potential to manifest subjective feelings which were (or will be) denied to them. I've already shown in my conundrum a few posts back how your logic can be used to turn a living, breathing person into a 'nonentity' and a justifiable victim of murder. And here, gveranon, may I point out that that Nabokov quote (which I know and love) equates prenatal with post-mortem, because they are (likely) one and the same -- both equal nothingnesses -- and I can't see how you could dispute this.

Look, don't misunderstand me here, I'm not stating you are guilty of the murder of those that you will deliberately cause to remain in the void. I'm merely pointing out that those who believe in an objective morality (as you do) could argue this point just as well as you could argue any of your antinatalist points.

To put it in other words (lest I'm misunderstood yet again) your argument -- that subjectivity (or lack thereof) overrides objectivity when it comes to stopping a potential being ever becoming an actual being -- is a direct inversion of your belief that objectivity overrides subjectivity when it comes to convincing people who enjoy life not to breed. So one rule for the potential beings ("objectively they've lost out, but they can't miss what they never knew they could've had"), and another rule for the actual beings ("they think they desire life, but trust me, objectively they don't").

So you don't value love, experience, pleasure, freedom, variety or anything else life offers over your beloved lack of suffering. Fine. What makes you think everyone else shares your values, or that your values could supersede others in a meaningless world, or that any value whatsoever could be logically applied to nothingness?

And, Viva June, you say "the unborn" is not a valid set of actual or hypothetical entities, merely a linguistic shorthand, even though the crux of your argument rests on their potential to manifest? Alrighty then.

Look, Grayhouse, gveranon and Viva June, whatever I have said above, it all really comes down to this: your arguments are valid *if* you can prove that the initial premise of antinatalism (i.e. that lack of suffering supersedes all other values) is objectively True and/or Moral. Since you are the ones making the claims to objectivity, but haven't yet proven your premise, the burden of proof remains with you. If you can't prove lack of suffering trumps love, freedom, pleasure, experience, and all of life's other values, your claim to objectivity collapses, and the rest of your points amount to BEEF-PORK-GOAT BEEF-PORK-GOAT.