David Benatar, Death, and the Harm in Existence
BY MICHAEL DA SILVA
Anti-natalism is the philosophical position opposing procreation. It has both local and global forms; “in its local form it applies only to particular people in certain instances, in its global form, to everyone.”1 Philosopher David Benatar, an expert in applied ethics presently of
the University of Cape Town, is one of the leading proponents of global anti-natalism.
While Benatar’s position was initially developed in journal articles,2 his 2006 book, Better
Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, is the most detailed account of his anti- natalist stance. It is also the leading argument for the inherent harm of existence; as its title suggests, it argues that coming into existence is always a harm. The consequences of this
Utilitarian perspective are severe. Benatar argues against the moral permissibility of creating sentient beings and for a phased extinction of the human race. For Benatar, “[r]eproduction is never morally acceptable...[and s]ex can be morally acceptable only if it is not reproductive.3
Benatar’s position is extreme, but influential. While negation of his central theses would not
justify unlimited procreational autonomy on its own, even limited ethical acceptance of
procreation may require strong arguments against him.
1 Brake, E. & Millum, J. "Parenthood and Procreation", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL:
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Benatar’s argument for the harm of existence rests on a series of assumptions about the
taxonomy of harms (i.e., death is a harm) and the proper ethical perspective from which to
judge given decisions (i.e., one cannot treat decisions about the creation of life the same way one
treats decisions about the continuance of life). A charitable philosopher attempting to ground
his controversial position in widely-held beliefs, he makes a number of concessions in his
argument. This essay demonstrates how Benatar’s own concessions create room for the
possibility that existence is not always a harm and identifies a possible logistical hurdle for his
population ethics given i) this possibility and ii) his commitment to the life worth starting–life
worth continuing distinction. This is not the first argument against the significance of the life
worth starting—life worth continuing distinction.4 It is, however, one that initially meets
Benatar on his own terms.
The demonstration focuses primarily on Benatar’s first argument for the harm of existence and its consequent anti-natalism. It is not chiefly grounded in concerns about the
Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives,5 equivocation between “impersonal goodness and
goodness for a Person”,6 the harm of the absence of goods no one can enjoy7 or the lack of
grounding for a claim that “absent pains are always valuable”.8 It instead largely focuses on
Benatar’s own concessions. In brief, it states: 1) there exists a condition where existence is
4 DeGrazia, D. “Is it wrong to impose the harms of human life? A reply to Benatar”, Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 31(4), (2010): 317-331. 5 Brown, C. “Better Never to Have Been Believed: Benatar on the Harm of Existence”, Economics and Philosophy 27(1), (2011): 45-52. 6 Harman, E. “Critical Study: David Benatar. Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)”, Nous 43(3), (2009): 776-785. 7 Smilansky, S. “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence”, Philosophical Quarterly 58(232), (2008):569-571. 8 Kaposy, C. “Coming Into Existence: The Good, The Bad, and the Indifferent: David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence. (Clarendon Press, 2006), Human Studies 32(1), 2006): 101-108.
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neither a benefit nor a harm, therefore, 2) given the possibility that a child’s existence is neither
a benefit nor a harm, having a child is not morally impermissible due to the fact of existence
alone, and, 3) once one exists, the ethical paradigm changes and lives that may not have been
worth starting may continue on the basis of criteria in this new paradigm. Extinction is thus unlikely even where Benatar’s precepts are fully adopted.
Furthermore, it is not clear that the life worth starting—life worth continuing divide is relevant if things are as bad as Benatar suggests in his second argument for the harm of existence. That argument relies on contingent facts about harm in existence that may demand the creation of a better world rather the permanent cessation of life creation.
A Brief Overview of David Benatar’s Argument for the Harm of Existence
Benatar’s two arguments for the harm of existence constitute the “heart” of his book.9
One is based on a fundamental asymmetry between the nature of the absence of pleasure and
the nature of the absence of pain. The other stems from how bad he thinks lives are. The
arguments are distinct, although the latter can also be understood as an extension of the
former.10
According to Benatar, the former is his “best argument”.11 It identifies an asymmetry
between (3) and (4) below:
(1) the presence of pain is bad...
9 Benatar, supra note 3 at 13. 10 Ibid. at 60-61 11 Ibid. at 203.
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(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.12
Where someone exists, there is both the bad of the presence of pain and the good of the presence of pleasure.13 Where no one exists, nothing bad happens and the good of the avoidance of pain is promoted; “only existers suffer harm”.14 For Benatar, “any suffering at all –
would be sufficient to make coming into existence a harm”.15 The harm of existence is avoidable and pointless.16 It is always good to avoid harm when one can do so at no cost; it is accordingly always good not to come into existence.17 Exposure to worse harms is a worse moral offence.
The sheer quantity of harm in existence thus animates Benatar’s second argument for the harm
of existence.
According to Benatar, “even the best lives are very bad”; some are worth continuing but
none were worth starting in the first place.18 People tend to overrate the pleasure in their lives due to an assortment of Pollyannism, adaptation/habituation and a focus on comparative rather than actual self-assessments of well-being.19 One can reasonably assert that life is not as bad as
Benatar makes out, but he says doing so would be wrong: “at least most lives are very bad”.20
12 Benatar, supra note 3 at 30. 13 Ibid. at 37-38. 14 Ibid. at 37-38; 29. 15 Ibid. at 206-207n6. 16 Ibid. at 5. 17 Ibid. at 205. 18 Ibid. at 61. 19 Ibid. at 65-68. 20 Ibid. at 94.
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Arguing from the Proper Perspective?
Benatar’s argument raises the important question of which form of ethical analysis is
appropriate for judging the decision-making about starting life. How should one frame the
moral universe of the non-existent? “Lives worth living” and “lives worth starting” are distinct
in Benatar’s thought.21 Decisions about the former can be made about potential future beings, while decisions about the latter must be made with reference to existent people.22 The threshold is higher for determining that a life is not worth continuing.23 It may be the case that a life would have been better if it did not exist in the first place, but this is no reason to end it now.24
Just as you may regret going to see a bad movie in the first place, but nonetheless stay to finish
it, you may regret coming into existence but still desire to continue existing.25 This is not perfectly rational economic action, but may be reasonable. When answering the question of whether a life is worth starting only, one can only take a future oriented perspective, looking at the benefits and harms of bringing someone into existence. The lives of existent people are not appropriate comparators.
Benatar does not initially wear his consequentialism on his sleeve, but eventually describes his arguments as broadly Utilitarian.26 Benatar’s anti-natalist argument weighs the
(child’s) positives and negatives of the consequences of having a child against one another.
Even if the positives outweigh the negatives, a wrong is committed if the consequent negatives
21 Benatar, supra note 3 at 22-28. 22 Ibid. at 22. 23 Ibid. at 23. 24 Ibid. at 24. 25 Ibid. at 15n23. 26 Ibid. at 88.
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reach a threshold of harm.27 On his construction (and perspective of reality), the negatives
always outweigh the positives – the harm of existence is always greater than any pleasure one
may experience and that pleasure is likely illusory in any case. In the realm of applied ethics,
consequences are clearly important. Having a child will bring it into existence, regardless of
how one frames the moral universe and this banal fact must be taken into account. One could
nevertheless question whether consequences should be decisive in determining whether a given
action is morally permissible, though Benatar leaves us with little room to do so.
Benatar’s Utilitarianism threatens to subsume competing ethical theories under his
consequentialist rubric. For Kantians, virtue ethicists and other non-consequentialist thinkers, it is natural to assume that there is some inviolable good, be it dignity, virtue or something else entirely, that is of such great import that to deny it to someone is to do them a wrong. Where that person does not exist, Benatar suggests even the denial of an inviolable good cannot harm them. Goods are only inviolable where they adhere to any individual. It is mistaken to raise them in defence of a potential future being. The non-existent is, in a sense, a non-entity.28
Dignity and/or virtue do not adhere to non-entities. One cannot speak of the dignity or virtue of the non-existent. The non-existent may have the potential for dignity or virtue, but the lack of either is not a harm in Benatar’s construction. Gaining it is not good enough to outweigh the general harm of existence. For a Kantian, this can be difficult to swallow. It makes sense, however, when one considers that Benatar is solely future-oriented in his perspective.
27 Benatar, supra note 3 at 46, 63. 28 Benatar uses the phrase ‘non-existent’ primarily with reference to the ‘never existent’.
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Kant does have a role to play in Benatar’s philosophy, though he is ironically used
primarily as a means to a larger consequentialist end. According to Benatar, the Kantian
imperative not to treat people as mere means extends to future people. Kant, however, does not
bar treating an individual as a means to one’s own end so long as one does not treat the
individual as a mere means. To the extent that the individual experiences a good in exchange for
the fact of existence, one could be considered an end in his or her self. Parents’ selfish reasons
for having children would be unproblematic. Yet, on Benatar’s construction, one cannot have a
child for the sake of that child.29 Ethical decision-making depends on seeing things from the perspective of the potential future person.30 One cannot speak to a potential future person directly to ascertain his or her desires. Non-existent entities do not yet possess the autonomy that allows them to “make the mistake” of continuing to live even in awful circumstances.31
Since one cannot have a child for that child’s sake, one can only have a child for the purposes of
others or for no reason at all.32 Where altruistic reasons for having children, such as the production of donor organs, are morally barred, Benatar finds it odd that one could accept reason-less child production as morally acceptable and suggests the latter is worse. The very fact that Kantian ends cannot justify having children clarifies why they cannot be justified on
Utilitarian grounds.
29 Benatar, supra note 3 at 2, 27, 54, 94, 97, 204. 30 Ibid. at 26. 31 Ibid. at 218. 32 Ibid. at 128-131.
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Deontological thought is later used to determine where it is acceptable to create new
lives to improve the quality of existent lives.33 A less stringent form is supposed to allow for their creation where it would result in a substantial reduction of total harm.34 Given Benatar’s
construction, it is difficult to see how such an individual could be said to be treated in
accordance with his or her ends prior to the beginning of life. They cannot agree to make the
world a better place before they exist. If their existence is an automatic harm, it is clearly wrong
to birth them on consequentialist grounds and autonomy concerns do not yet adhere. One must
thus look at whether one can justifiably be brought into existence before looking at his or her
interests that only adhere to sentient beings. These include dignity.
The Harm of Existence or the Harm in Existence?
From the outset, Benatar is clear that “coming into existence is always a harm”.35 Non-
sentient entities lack morally relevant interests. To experience one’s existence is to be sentient.36
If one cannot experience (“feel”) one’s existence, then one lacks conscious interests and higher level interests that subsume them.37 To have this experience is also to experience the consequent
unpleasantness thereof; this is true for all sentient beings, including both human beings and
other animals.38 All morally relevant interests are conscious interests or higher.39 To have
33 Benatar, supra note 3 at 191-192. 34 Ibid. at 192. 35 Ibid. at 1. 36 Ibid. at 3. 37 Ibid. at 141. 38Ibid. at 3, 223. 39 Ibid. at 141.
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morally relevant interests, then, is to experience unpleasantness. All morally relevant beings in
Benatar’s construction experience the same harm: the harm of existence.
One wonders, however, if coming into existence itself is a harm or only the consequent
unpleasantness to which it exposes one. If existence itself is not a harm, then the creation of a
life free of other harms may not be ethically impermissible. The problem with creating a child,
then, would be a matter of risk rather than logical necessity. Benatar says that coming into
existence “always constitutes a net harm”,40 but it is likely the “stuff of life” rather than the mere fact of existence which causes one to experience harm. According to Benatar, one need not accept the full Schopenhauerian picture to find that “suffering is endemic to and pervasive in life”.41 One may nonetheless need Schopenhauer’s metaphysics to show that it is existence itself and not experiences within it that are necessary harms. Indeed, Benatar’s own construction seems to allow one to exist in a very limited circumstance without it constituting a harm.
On Death
Benatar spends pages constructing a catalogue of miseries that show the great extent of harm in the world.42 He suggests that everyone experiences at least one of these harms,
40 Benatar, supra note 3 at 1. 41 Ibid. at 77. 42 Ibid. at 89-92.
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indicating that the risk of exposure to harm is actually a certainty.43 Everyone at least experience
pain, disappointment, anxiety or grief.44 Even those who would not do experience death.45
Death, however, may not be a harm and where one dies shortly after being born, existence may not be a harm. The Epicurean perspective claims that death is not ‘bad’; one simply ceases to existence and a non-entity cannot experience good or bad.46 Moral institutions are structured to indicate death is bad,47 but this could be as much a function of untrustworthy
biological hardwiring as our societal commitment to continued birth. Benatar cites
Schopenhauer on the “calm of non-existence” without delving into its implications after death.
Schopenhauerian art, such as Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, treats death as a positive return to
that calm. Benatar admittedly deals with this possibility “too briefly”, then concedes that
“[t]hose who think that death does not harm the person who dies may simply leave death off
my list of harms”.48
Immediately after granting the possibility that death may not be a harm, Benatar seems to suggest that death may be the only harm that befalls those who die “very soon after coming into existence”.49 Technically, he only goes so far as to say they are “spared much of the harms, but are obviously not spared death”,50 but it is unclear which other harm they could experience
(save for existence itself). They do not experience pain, disappointment, anxiety or grief. They could experience pleasure in their brief existence. This is a real case of existence not being a
43 Benatar, supra note 3 at 92. 44 Ibid. at 29. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. at 213. 47 Ibid. at 214. 48 Ibid. at 29n20. 49 Ibid. at 29n21. 50 Ibid at 29n21.
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harm. It is not the same as the charmed life with the largest harm being less than a pinprick that
Benatar describes as “implausible”.51 Where the pinprick is present, Benatar is likely right to discard these cases by stating that “we can acknowledge that the harm of coming into existence is a miniscule without denying that it is a harm”.52 This real case, however, raises the question
about the possibility (and plausibility) of such charmed existences. A full life lived without
harm resulting in death is also theoretically possible and presents the same challenges to
Benatar’s theory, but birth followed shortly thereafter by death is the only one he is willing to
grant as a “realistic” possibility.
In the case of an individual who dies shortly after coming into existence, existence
would afford a benefit to the individual, albeit not one that they would have been denied if they
did not exist. One who thinks the child should experience that benefit for the child’s sake could
be said to have the child for the child’s sake. In this scenario, it is not the case that a harm befalls
the child so it is not necessarily the case that to exist is against the child’s interest. Existence
would be no better than non-existence, but would also be no worse. One could wish to gamble
that his or her child will be the one who will die shortly after birth.
Benatar could respond that the chances of a longer life are great and the exposure to the
possibility of harm is bad enough. As he rightly points out in the text, one cannot know in
advance what lives will be worth starting.53 This example nevertheless indicates that Benatar goes too far when he says that existence is always a harm and that the possibility of a bad life is
100%. One could be born and die shortly thereafter. The brief trip between points of non-
51 Benatar, supra note 3 at 48. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid, at 95.
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existence could not plausibly be described as a harm in this case except where the mere fact of
existence is a harm regardless of consequences and, as noted above, Benatar’s consequentialism
makes a commitment to the proposition “existence absent harms is itself a harm” difficult. He
lacks the Schopenhauerian commitment to a metaphysical structure beyond our own to make
the fact of existence bleak even in the absence of known physical harm during one’s lifetime.
Challenges Endeavoured by a Recognition that Harm is in Existence
Natalists would likely be unhappy if parents gambling that their children will be born
and die shortly thereafter is the best that they can hope for, but the example raises two
intriguing possibilities. The notion of gambling raises a challenge to Benatar’s decision-making
model while the possibility of a life that is worth living begins to challenge Benatar’s particular
use of the life worth starting—life worth continuing divide.
The recognition that existence is not always a harm brings us squarely into the realm of
Benatar’s second argument. Even if the harm of existing in today’s world is likely to be great,
however, Len Doyle suggests we may wish to gamble that a given child may not be exposed to
great harm.54 Drawing on a Rawlsian model hinted at and denied in the text of Banatar’s
argument, he moves beyond the limited case of children who die immediately after coming into
creation and suggests that many individuals (or their proxies) in an original position could
desire a world in which people exist even if they did not know whether they would themselves
exist. In short, he denies that life is always bad and says, “Benatar has no option but to be
54 Doyle, L. “Is Human Existence Worth Its Consequent Harm?” Journal of Medical Ethics 33(10), (2007): 573- 576 at 574-575.
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dismissive of all of us who believe that the adventure of being alive and of striving for our own
individual stamp of meaning within it makes the perceived or non-perceived harms of existence
worth the potential benefits”.55 Doyle’s argument rests on analogies with distributive justice
theory. Benatar recognizes that comparison between parties is relevant for distributive justice
concerns.56 He is not, however, willing to extend the importance of comparison to considerations of whether one should be born. Doyle and Benatar may be arguing past one another. The creation of a just world, however, could necessitate the creation of a world in which further births are required: both require a reduction in pain. Both Benatar and Doyle agree that “the potential of human life cannot be evaluated in a political and economic vacuum”.57
Things may not be as bad as Benatar says they are. If they are not, it is possible that one
could desire a world in which individuals exist. An individual thinking of having a child and
holding this preference could wish to gamble that his or her child will experience the good in
life rather than the bad. Of course, Benatar can argue that a harm threshold will always be met,
but the disavowal of the absolutism in his first one suggests existence is not a harm of absolute
necessity. Doyle may thus be right in suggesting a righteous gamble need not only apply to
trying to have a child who will die shortly thereafter. One can imagine that a pleasure
threshold, the converse of Benatar’s pain threshold, exists and the benefits of a life that meets it
outweigh any possible harms. Gambling for this could be reasonable, if not fully rational (since
a gamble is never fully rational).
55 Doyle, L. “Is Human Existence Worth Its Consequent Harm?” at 575. 56 Benatar, supra note 3 at 86. 57 Doyle, supra note 54 at 575.
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Regardless of what one thinks of gambling, the possible existence of a human being raises a logistical concern for his complete anti-natalism and call for a sentient being-free universe. While life worth starting divides must always look at the potential future being, this is no longer a necessity once a being has been born. The creation of life shifts decision-makers into a life worth continuing paradigm wherein a different threshold applies. Different considerations must be taken into account. Dignity and virtue adhere to a living being. Once the possibility of a birth is open, people who are born are subject to a new ethical domain. Unless death is a harm, it is not the case that all individuals are harmed by existence. Thus, birth is not a necessary harm. Having a child may not be ethically problematic. Once a child is born, he or she will either i) retroactively validate his or her parents’ decision by dying quickly or ii) begin a new debate on whether his or her life is so bad that it cannot continue. Even if it would not have been worth starting, it could still remain worth continuing. Once births are allowed and not all individuals die shortly thereafter, the possibility of a population of zero seems unlikely. People are likely going to continue meeting the life worth continuing threshold. Of course, looking at things from a future person perspective like Benatar, the risk of a long life may be enough to make having a child unethical, but here it is not an inherent harm of existence but a high likelihood of harm that makes procreation problematic.
In a Better World?
Even within the confines of Benatar’s second argument alone, the lives worth starting— lives worth continuing distinction may be of questionable value. The distinction provides the
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basis for Benatar’s argument against compulsory suicide. It is unclear how important this
distinction is in the current world. Elizabeth Harman is likely right to suggest that regardless of
where the harm, necessitating that non-existence threshold may be suicide seems logical if the
amount of pain in the world is as bad as Benatar suggests in his second argument.58 Whether
things are as bad as Benatar claims is important from either perspective.
Critics dispute Benatar’s contention that harm is rampant. Doyle suggests crediting all
positive sentiment to Pollyannism may be paternalistic.59 Saul Smilansky says that even granting that pleasure is illusory may not be morally relevant; illusory pleasure may be sufficient to ground a justification for existence: even if “most people are in some ways ‘happy idiots’, we need a strong argument to show that happiness of that sort is not happiness enough”.60 Benatar’s use of a harm threshold remains important even in light of these criticisms.
Even if pleasure is real and outweighs pain, it is not enough to justify existence. If the amount of
harm in the world alone determines whether coming into existence is a necessary harm, then
the quantum is important. Benatar acknowledges that one can simply deny that the harm is
great in order to justify having children in limited circumstances.61 If existence itself is not a necessary harm, one must look at the actual bad in the world to determine the permissibility of creating life.
58 Benatar, supra note 3 at 212; Harman, supra note 4 at 785. 59 Doyle, supra note 54 at 575. 60 Smilansky, supra note 7. 61 The circumstances are where sufficient good could be produced for others due the child’s birth; ibid. at 98- 99. This, however, runs into the mere means problems raised above since a potential future person perspective cannot exercise autonomy to make ‘mere means’ become ‘means’. This is true even of children who immediately die without being harmed since you definitely harm their dignity by using them as mere means.
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Likewise, the fact that existence is not always a harm may have consequences for
Benatar’s argument for extinction. His argument is not merely a “bad world” argument.62 Even if the world were much better, Benatar would still think extinction is necessary on the basis of his first argument; human causes of suffering may provide sufficient grounds for a misanthropic anti-natal view, but Benatar’s supposedly philanthropic perspective opposes birth even where harm is not caused by humans.63 According to Benatar, the harm is so great that the existence of one person constitutes overpopulation.64 If this person does not suffer, however, it
is difficult to find the harm. The easiest case of ethical population is one where the sole human
being in existence came into existence moments ago and will die in moments as well. In the
moment of existence, there is ethical population.
This is hardly heartening given that the end result is extinction, but other harmless lives
can be imagined in order to establish a longer-term population. For instance, one can imagine
the last man being the existential hero for whom hell was other people and life alone is
paradise. Harm in this man’s life is hard to fathom. If we knew he was going to experience a
pinprick, Benatar would say it would be unethical for us to create him. In this and many other cases, however, his subjective experience could be such that is perceived as a good. Perhaps he would be “wrong” to view it this way, but it still unclear that it would matter, particularly in the absence of another individual with whom to compare him. Strictly in Benatar’s framework, the problem would be the same as that of a full life lived without harm resulting in death: it is unrealistic. On the other hand, even the psychological literature Benatar cites may be contingent
62 Smilansky, supra note 7at 13. 63 Ibid. at 224. 64 Ibid. at 166.
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on current scientific practice and an unwillingness to treat subjective pleasure as morally on par
with its objective rivals. Those willing to venture into a world where subjective experiences
matter may find another example of a life free of harm: one where one does not experience it.
An argument for the ethical existence of one individual is of little more than theoretical
value, but the fact of the contingency of harm that makes existence itself a harm has important
consequences. If existence itself is not a harm, then the possibility that we can create a better
world remains. Indeed, one may suggest that this is the proper ethical perspective one should
take. Benatar allows one to make current lives better so long as one does not “spread the
suffering” in the world, including the harm of existence.65 In the short-term, reducing the harm in the world may be good for existent persons and increase the possibility of lives being worth continuing. Even granting the existence of a different threshold for starting lives, one wonders if one could eventually create a world where harm crumbles the threshold barring the creation of existence. Creation of a better world would likely include not having children at the moment since harm is rather great. Benatar’s catalogue of miseries makes that clear and he accordingly bars procreation while attempting to make current lives better. If it is not too late to make the world a better place, however, a day could come where having children could become ethical again. If it happens soon enough, extinction could be ethically warded off.
Conclusion
65 Smilansky, supra note 7 at 210.
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At minimum, Benatar must provide a more fulsome argument for death’s status as a harm in order to establish that existence is always a harm. Failure to do so opens him up to the possibility of a world where either i) other sentient entities exist without it constituting a harm or ii) the fact of one individual case of existence being a harm leads to a general contingency of harm. Where harm is contingent, it can be reduced and may fall below the now lower, non- absolute threshold for where lives are worth starting given the possibility that life need not be a harm all the time.
Even if death is a harm, however, Benatar should revisit the distinction between lives worth starting and lives worth continuing. While it has real theoretical merit, it can create problems at the level of applied ethics. If a life is worth starting on the grounds of X, but not on the grounds of Y, one can gamble for X and end up with Y, which one would regret, but could not use as a justification for the cessation of a life that now exists. The result would be continued life, continued suffering and a delay in our gradual extinction.
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