The Benatarian Asymmetry

South African antinatalist philosopher David Benatar, author of Better Never to Have Been, asserts that coming into existence is always a harm because (a) suffering is an inevitable part of life,(b) a nonexistent person is not harmed by not having pleasures (c) there is no reason to bring a happy person into existence.   Therefore, whatever pleasures a  person may enjoy in life come at the price of experiencing pain.  From this, he concludes that the pain aspect of life is gratuitous.

He backs up this claim by asserting there exists an “asymmetry” between pleasure and pain. The differences in our value judgments toward pleasure and pain are sound only with regard to their presence – but not to their absence.  These judgments are based on the perspective of the person actually experiencing the pain or pleasure, as opposed to an outside observer making judgments for that person.  However, this is not relevant for the question “Is it good or bad to come into existence?”, for only the person experiencing the pleasure or pain can rightfully judge whether their own life is worth living.

The asymmetry argument has four premises, divided into two parts: symmetrical and asymmetrical.  

Before further discussion proceeds, it is important to say that masochism is not relevant here, for it is actually a form of pleasure, albeit it bears pain’s disguise.  Therefore, it is inappropriate to discuss it in the context of pain as used by Benatar.  With that said, here is the argument.

(1)    The presence of pain is bad 
(2)    The presence of pleasure is good

This is the symmetrical part of the argument, which is noncontroversial.  However, these value judgments apply only to their presence. It says nothing about their absence. 

Hence, we come to the second - the asymmetrical - part of Benatar’s argument, which implicitly addresses “What ifs” – counterfactuals (alternate scenarios) that could well have happened (or not), but did not (or did). Again, these judgments are based on the standpoint of the interests of the person in question.  

(3)    The absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone 
(4)    The absence of pleasure is not bad unless there exists somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation. 
 

The asymmetrical part of the argument addresses at least two scenarios at the same time: “What if a person who does in fact exist did not exist?”  (in point 3) or vice versa (in point 4). [1]  The phrasing also implicitly addresses people who do in fact exist as well. In other words, (4) says the absence of pleasure is a bad thing only for people who do exist. Conversely, if nobody exists who can’t experience pleasure, then the absence of pleasure is not a bad thing.

Some object that it is nonsensical to say that the absence of pain is a good thing for nonexistent people, for nonexistent people cannot benefit from a good thing.  Benatar responds that (3) talks of counterfactual scenarios.  Also, an actual nonexistent person would have felt pain had they come into existence.  In the latter case, it is good that that person did not feel the pain; even if only because of their not coming into existence.

SUPPORT FOR THE ASYMMETRY

Benatar contends his asymmetry explains other asymmetries: 

*We have a duty to avoid bringing suffering people into existence but none to bring happy people into existence. We have no duty to bring children into existence if it either (a) unduly burdens us or (b) would clearly be bad for the child.  Otherwise, if having children involves no sacrifice on our part, why not simply have as many children as possible? In either case, we are not taking the interests of the child into account because we are not considering how their lives might turn out.

*A child’s potential interests are a reason not to have children, yet it makes no sense to say a child’s potential pleasures are a reason to have them.  The last part of the claim is discussed under the next point (Retrospective Judgments); the first part of the claim draws from the fact that children should not be brought into a harmful environment. Furthermore, there is no assurance the child would actually benefit from a living existence.

*Retrospective Judgments.  It is said “Hindsight is 20/20” (perfect vision, for non-American readers).  We can and do regret that a child was brought into a bad existence, because the child suffers from it.  On the other hand, if child who would have been happy is not brought into existence, the child cannot suffer from that lack of happiness simply because it cannot do so.  Therefore, we cannot regret failure to bring a happy child into existence for the child’s sake; we can only regret it for ourselves because we don’t enjoy the presence of that child.  

*Asymmetrical judgments about distant suffering and suffering in uninhabited parts of the earth (or universe for that matter).  For example, we may feel sorrow for people who suffer in distant lands, but we do not feel sorrow for (obviously non-existent) people who otherwise would have inhabited an uninhabited island, or even non-existent intelligent Martians.[2]  We regret suffering but not absent pleasures.

Positive utilitarians (those who believe utility increases happiness) would say “the more happy people, the better”.  However, Benatar counters with the famous distinction between making people happy and making happy people.  Positive utilitarians are consistent within their philosophy when they insist that we “make existing people happy”, but are not so if they insist on “making (i.e., creating) happy people”.  

The above counterclaim leads to many ethical difficulties.  Among these is assuming that people are made to enjoy happiness, which implies that happiness must (in the moral sense) exist for its own sake.  This overlooks the fact that happiness is merely a means to achieve a desired end. That end is contentment, not happiness for its own sake. After all, if no people exist, then happiness is not very useful.  Thus, happiness is less important than people themselves.   If we assume happiness to be more important than people, then people are merely bottles with which to fill with happiness, no matter how much pain they inevitably receive along with the happiness; as opposed to independent entities with their own will, opinions, and desires that deserve to be respected. 

Thus, Benatar show there is strong evidence supporting his asymmetry, namely due to its great explanatory power regarding other, less controversial, asymmetries.  

   

Point (4) is sound because If we assume the absence of pleasure is bad in and of itself, then we presuppose the following: (a) we are sorry for the nonexistent child’s sake, as opposed to our own, that it did not come into existence; which in turn presupposes (b) a non-existent child suffers from having no pleasures.  Point (b) clearly is not true, thereby undercutting the logic of (a).  In this case, it is difficult to see how the absence of pleasure in and of itself is bad.

In addition, there are other well-established notions suggesting that we have a duty to not commit harm, yet have no duty to do good to provide them with pleasures beyond what they need to survive.  For example, we have a duty to help desperately needy people but no duty to give them a lump sum of money equivalent to a twenty-year salary of a typical corporate employee.[3] In non-material matters, we also we have a duty to not rape people, yet we don’t have a duty to give them sex if they want it.  

SYMMETRICAL JUDGMENTS ABOUT THE ABSENCE OF PAIN AND PLEASURE 

Consider the same argument, but suppose the absence of pleasure (Point 4) is judged bad; which is symmetrical to “the absence of pain is good”.  In this case, we rewrite this point “The absence of pleasure is bad even when there is nobody around for whom this lack is a deprivation”.   Recall this deals with “good” and “bad” from the perspective of the person in question, not from our own perspective.  In this case, if nobody were around, then “nobody” could be deprived.  If there is no deprivation, then nothing bad happens.  To argue this is to imply that a nonexistent person suffers from not experiencing pleasure.  While it is true that we can regret a person’s nonexistence of those children, the regret is only on behalf of ourselves and not the said children.

Alternate judgments of Points 3 and 4 do no better.  In this case, we rewrite this as (3)“The absence of pain is not bad, even if the person does not exist” and (4) “the absence of pleasure is not good, even when there is nobody around for whom this lack is not good”.  Here, “not bad” does not mean “good”, nor does “not good” mean “bad”.  The lack of pleasure appears to be an almost neutral state for the nonexistent, for “not good” is not the same as “bad”.  By contrast Benatar states merely calling the absence of pain “not bad” is not informative enough, for it implies the lack of pain can be merely “not bad” understates how bad pain in and of itself is.[4] Therefore, the absence of pain is a good thing .  Even sticking “not good” onto the absence of pleasure will not work, for as Benatar says,  

If pain is bad and pleasure is good, but the absence of pain is good and the absence of pleasure is not good, there is no asymmetry between pleasure and pain

EXISTING VERSUS NEVER EXISTING

To claim that “good” is an advantage over “not bad” is to treat the non-existent and existent in the same way.  It also confuses relative bad with intrinsic, absolute bad. “Good” is better than “not bad” only if a person exists.  If the person does not exist, then is irrelevant if their don't experience “good”.  Indeed, the absent pleasure is simply “not bad”. This is because nonexistence cannot create the conditions necessary for a sense of deprivation (objective deprivation or not).  Hence, it makes more sense to focus on whether the pain intrinsic in living is a better state of affairs than the lack of pain intrinsic in nonexistence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Benatar, David: Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence.

NOTES

[1] Hypotheticals (i.e.“What ifs”) are a widely accepted form of reasoning because they are a crucial part of planning ahead and preparing for what is plausibly possible.  After all, failure to ponder about how your proposed actions may affect the future well-being of others is considered incompetent at best and criminally negligent at worst. For example, hypotheticals are crucially important in strategic planning by corporations and by governments (e.g, land use rezoning, disaster planning, changes in foreign policy, war, etc.).  The same goes for passing or repealing laws.  Therefore, dismissing a hypothetical simply because it is a hypothetical is to deny that different situations often lead to different results; clearly an absurd position to begin with.

[2] While there may still be some dispute as to whether Mars actually had life in any form shortly after its complete formation, conditions on Mars almost certainly were more conducive to creating and sustaining life then than they are now.  If Mars actually did have life, then the argument is even more relevant to the antinatalism issue, for we can now ask “Had intelligent Martians actually come into existence, would they really be better off living?”.  

[3] Even assuming one receives an enormous compensation package for reasons of being the victim of gross neglicence (e.g., faulty product, false arrest, etc), it is still realistically conceivable that the victim could say “No level of compensation is enough to truly make up for my suffering, for no amount of money can reverse the damage of those precious years.”

[4] Income levels (or in this case the lack thereof) illustrate the difference between “good”, “bad” and “not bad”. The typical middle class family would not consider their inability to afford a Beverly Hills mansion a bad thing; not a good thing, to be sure, but merely “not bad”.  By contrast, an impoverished person not earning income adequate to avoid late rent payments is not merely “not good”, it is “bad”.