David Benatar

David Benatar is a South African philosopher, emeritus professor at the University of Cape Town, best known as the leading modern defender of anti-natalism. In Better Never to Have Been (2006) he argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm, so that having children is morally wrong. The argument turns on an asymmetry between pleasure and pain. He has also written The Second Sexism (2012), on discrimination against men and boys, and The Human Predicament (2017), a frank account of life's meaning, quality and death.

Key ideas

• The absence of pain is good even if no one exists to enjoy that absence.
• The absence of pleasure is not bad unless someone exists who is deprived of it.
• Given this asymmetry, never existing has an advantage over existing, so coming into existence is always a harm.
• People systematically overestimate how good their lives are, which hides how bad life typically is.
• Procreation is therefore wrong, and it would be better if humanity gradually ceased to exist.

Major works

• Better Never to Have Been (2006)
• The Second Sexism (2012)
• The Human Predicament (2017)

In the Book corner

• Better Never to Have Been 2006 · Advanced
  A rigorous defence of anti-natalism, the view that coming into existence is always a serious harm and that it is wrong to…

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