In honor of the 50th post on this blog, I’ve decided to write about a topic each one of us has vividly encountered in our lives: antinatalism. Antinatalism, put briefly, is the philosophical idea that bringing life into the world is downright unethical. That’s right: all of us were wronged when we were placed into the world. To prevent future harm, adherents of antinatalism believe, we must prevent more life from coming into the world.

That is certainly a bold claim. Surprisingly, there is a strong philosophical basis to the argument. I think South-African Philosopher David Benatar sums it up best. Benatar uses four premises to set up his radical conclusion. He states that

1. The presence of pain is bad.
2. The presence of pleasure is good.
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 is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation.

Therefore, we can construct a Pascal’s-wager-esque diagram to illustrate our findings. I’ll share a common version here.

As you can see, Benatar’s diagram demonstrates an asymmetry. Presence of pain is bad and the absence of pain is good, but the absence of pleasure isn’t necessarily bad; it’s just neutral. The absence of pain, on the other hand, is deemed to be good. Per Benatar, we shouldn’t think of pleasure and pain as two ends on a gradient of experiences. Doing so would imply that both pain and pleasure pose equal importance to us. In reality, Benatar argues, the gradient from pain to absence of pain should carry much more weight. We should prioritize preventing beings from being in pain over giving them pleasurable experiences. To illustrate this point, think about the government. We have certain programs that help people that are actively in pain reach an absence of pain. Yet, in Benatar’s view, these programs do not work to give pleasure to people. As I understand it, in Benatar’s view, we should place our societal priority on getting rid of pain—something different then creating pleasure.

If the aforementioned proposition is true, then it logically follows that it would be in the best interest of a just society as a whole to stop having babies. Suffering is an inevitable aspect of life. Pleasure is far less inevitable–it would be naive to assume that all of us have pleasurable lives. Therefore, because having a baby will bring a being into a world full of suffering—without their consent, additionally—we should refrain from procreation.

Benatar also makes the point that the difference between our priorities regarding presence of pleasure and presence of pain depends on existence. In his opinion, while it would be good for newborns to experience pleasure, the absence of pleasure developed if they don’t come into existence won’t be bad—because there will be no one to be deprived of this good. On the other hand, Benatar makes the point that the absence of suffering is good, even if there is no one to enjoy the absence of that suffering. To me, this is where the otherwise cogent argument begins to fall off the tracks.

I don’t see a valid way one can state that the absence of pleasure deprives no one yet the absence of pain still benefits someone. Sure, we can place different levels of societal importance on eradicating one or another, but on a corporeal level, they are two sides of the same coin. One can make the point that pleasure is defined as nothing more than the absence of pain. While in societal measures we may place more importance on getting rid of pain then ensuring pleasure, it seems that in reality they exist on a gradient scale with torture on one end and euphoria on the other. Thus, if the absence of the absence of pleasure is good, then how can pleasure itself not be good as well? In the above statement, the “absences” cancel each other out because they are a double negative. Because we can simply replace “absence of pleasure” with “pain,” rendering the above statement “the absence of pain is good,”—which is what Benatar originally claimed—this asymmetry makes no sense. Therefore, removing pain brings pleasure (and vice versa), and therefore pleasure must be inherently valued as well.

Thus, the idea to prevent future generations by not having babies is flawed at it’s core. While pleasure can be encouraged and pain can be discouraged, there is no way that we can state one exists one a different metaphysical level than the other—they are simply two sides of the same coin. Stronger antinatalist arguments, in my view, center on the problem of consent (paradoxical though it is) and on the relative weight of suffering versus pleasure in a life yet to be lived.