The Double Standard Behind Benatar’s Asymmetry Argument for Anti-Natalism

In his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, the South African philosopher David Benatar has put forth an argument for anti-natalism. This is the belief that procreation is always wrong. He argues that there is an asymmetry between the values of pleasure and pain for someone who exists and for someone who does not exist, and this asymmetry implies that it is worse for a new life to come into existence than for it not to come into existence.

It is to be understood here that Benatar means that it is worse for the particular individual, not that it is worse for society or the greater good. I might argue that reproduction should be limited to prevent, slow down, or undo overpopulation. But that is not what Benatar is arguing for. His claim is that it is worse for the particular individual involved to be brought into existence than it is to continue not existing. It is for this reason that he opposes procreation, and he has no problem with the whole human race going extinct, which is what would happen if everyone followed what he teaches. As he mentions in the abstract to his book,

(1) Coming into existence is always a serious harm. (2) Procreation is always wrong. … (4) It would be better if, as a result of there being no new people, humanity became extinct.¹

His argument for asymmetry begins with a table like this:

	Scenario A (X exists)	Scenario B (X never exists)
	(1) Presence of pain (Bad)	(3) Absence of pain (Good)
	(2) Presence of pleasure (Good)	(4) Absence of pleasure (Not bad)

This table displays four premises, each labeled by a number. He claims that premises (1) and (2) are uncontroversial, and they result in a symmetry between the values of pleasure and pain for someone who exists. He gives more detailed arguments for (3) and (4), since it is the difference between these two that he believes creates an asymmetry between pleasure and pain for the never-existent. His claim is that the absence of pain is a positive good for the never-existent, but the absence of pleasure is merely not bad (meaning its value is zero) for the never-existent. Since pain and pleasure are both absent for the non-existent, he concludes that non-existence is overall good. He maintains that this gives never-existence an advantage over existence, making it wrong to bring anyone into existence.

One objection that might be immediately raised against his conclusion is that it also implies that we should all go kill ourselves, or that some good Samaritan should take it upon himself to kill as many people as he can. To avoid this, he makes a distinction between coming into existence and continuing to exist. If someone’s life is going well enough, it would be better to let him go on living. But to bring someone into existence, he claims, would be doing a harm to the person by making possible all the pain this person would ever experience. I can understand the distinction by analogy. A video game might be worth continuing to play even if it gets very hard in the higher levels, but it might not be worth beginning to play if it will start out extremely hard. This distinction might help someone reconcile Benatar’s asymmetry argument with continuing to live, but that matters only to people who agree with the argument. Since I will be arguing that his argument doesn’t work, this distinction is of no real concern to me, and I won’t focus on it.

Let me now zero in on the main problem with Benatar’s argument. He uses different standards to support his case for (3) and his case for (4). Relying on a double standard, his argument for the asymmetry is inconsistent, undermining itself. First of all, he disavows that (3) means what it appears to mean, that the absence of pain is good for never-existing people. He writes,

I shall not claim that the never-existent literally are better-off. Instead, I shall argue that coming into existence is always bad for those who come into existence. In other words, although we may not be able to say of the never-existent that never existing is good for them, we can say of the existent that existence is bad for them.²

Here is how he describes what (3) actually means for someone who will never exist:

Claim (3) says that this absence is good when judged in terms of the interests of the person who would have otherwise existed. We may not know who that person would have been, but we can say that whoever that person would have been, the avoidance of his or her pains is good when judged in terms of his or her potential interests.³

So what he is really expressing by (3) is a counterfactual. When he calls the absence of pain good for the never-existent, what he really means is that pain would be bad for the never-existing person if that person existed. Well, this is what (1) already tells us. This counterfactual interpretation adds nothing to what (1) already says. It just frames it in a way that comes across as misleading. Using the same standard, I may call the absence of pleasure bad in the counterfactual sense that pleasure would be good for the never-existent person if he or she did exist. This makes (4) mean the same thing as (2), adding nothing to what (2) already tells us. Using the same standard for (4) as Benatar does for (3), the table looks like this, and the asymmetry goes away.

	Scenario A (X exists)	Scenario B (X never exists)
	(1) Presence of pain (Bad)	(3) Absence of pain (Good)
	(2) Presence of pleasure (Good)	(4) Absence of pleasure (Bad)

In defending his asymmetry, he says,

The absence of bad things, such as pain, is good even if there is nobody to enjoy that good, whereas the absence of good things, such as pleasure, is bad only if there is somebody who is deprived of these good things.⁴

By what standard can this be? It’s not an impersonal standard. Elizabeth Harman has brought this up as a possible interpretation, but she mentions in a footnote, David Benatar tells me he intends that the Asymmetry be read as entirely about goodness (and badness) for the person who would have been created, and not at all as about impersonal goodness and badness.⁵

Somehow, the absence of pain is supposed to be good for the never-existing person, while the absence of pleasure is not bad for the never-existing person. In arguing against a "Bad" evaluation of (4), he writes,

if the absence of pleasure in Scenario B is bad rather than not bad then we should have to regret, for X’s sake, that X did not come into existence. But it is not regrettable.⁶

I would disagree. We may not be able to know who any never-existent people would have been, but there are surely some never-existent people who, had they been born, would have lived remarkably happy lives. We may regret, for their sakes, that they never knew the joy of living. Of course, there is nothing we can do for these never-existent people, and no matter how many people exist and live wonderful lives, there will always be more never-existent people who could have but didn’t. In that respect, it doesn’t make any sense to dwell on regret over this.

By this same standard, we might feel relief that the never-existent are not suffering, but it makes no sense to take any serious comfort in this. Since the never-existent will never exist, they are not of much concern to us, one way or the other. The same standard works both ways, and Benatar hasn’t given a convincing reason why it shouldn’t. If he thinks that one makes more sense than the other, it would seem to come down to his subjective preference.

That aside, being counterfactually good or bad in the senses described here is simply not the same as being literally good or bad. To compare something that is literally bad with something that is counterfactually bad, or to compare something that is literally good with something that is counterfactually good is to commit the fallacy of equivocation. Comparisons between the quadrants work only if good and bad are all taken in the same sense. Since quadrants (1) and (2) use these terms literally, (3) and (4) will have to do the same if we are to meaningfully compare them with each other.

As an aside, Benatar addresses a similar but different objection. This objection claims that we cannot compare never-existent people with actual people. I’m not making that objection here. My objection is superficially similar when we use counterfactual goodness or badness for both (3) and (4), because it prohibits comparison of these with (1) and (2). But my objection is different. In the asymmetry, as he has presented it, my objection also prohibits comparison between (3) and (4). For me, the problem is not the comparison between existing and non-existing people. The problem is in making a comparison using different senses of the same terms. Since (3) doesn’t use the literal meaning of good, it cannot be compared with (2), which does, and it cannot be compared with the literal uses of bad in either (1) or (4).

We’ll now return to his original asymmetry:

	Scenario A (X exists)	Scenario B (X never exists)
	(1) Presence of pain (Bad)	(3) Absence of pain (Good)
	(2) Presence of pleasure (Good)	(4) Absence of pleasure (Not bad)

What he means by (4) is simply what it says, that the absence of pleasure fails to be a bad thing for those who do not exist. He says, the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation.⁷ Likewise, I may say that the absence of pain is not good unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a benefit. This is the same standard he uses to argue for (4). And when we’re talking about the never-existent, there is no one, as he himself admits when he says, I shall not claim that the never-existent literally are better-off.⁸ If he wants to stick with this meaning of (4), then consistency requires that (3) should say that the absence of pain fails to be a good thing for the non-existent. Using these meanings for (3) and (4), the table looks like this:

	Scenario A (X exists)	Scenario B (X never exists)
	(1) Presence of pain (Bad)	(3) Absence of pain (Not good)
	(2) Presence of pleasure (Good)	(4) Absence of pleasure (Not bad)

Here, calling the absence of pain not good means that it fails to provide any positive value to the never-existent, and calling the absence of pleasure not bad means that it fails to bring any negative value to the never-existent. Instead of considering this option, Benatar switches not good and not bad around and considers this one:

	Scenario A (X exists)	Scenario B (X never exists)
	(1) Presence of pain (Bad)	(3) Absence of pain (Not bad)
	(2) Presence of pleasure (Good)	(4) Absence of pleasure (Not good)

His argument against this is very cursory. He says, Avoiding the pains of existence is more than merely not bad. It is good.⁹ This is just a reiteration of (3) and a contradiction of his previous disavowal of a literal interpretation of (3). He also says, Judging the absence of pleasure to be not good is also too weak in that it does not say enough.¹⁰ He adds, The answer, I suggest, is that it is not good, but not bad either rather than not good, not bad.¹¹ This is confusing, since there is not much distinction between these two claims. After all, both are simply conjunctions of not good and not bad, making these different ways of expressing the same fact, which is that not feeling pleasure has zero value for the never-existent. So his argument against this possibility basically comes down to obfuscation, circular reasoning, and self-contradiction. That’s not very convincing, to say the least. I would add that the absence of pain has zero value for the never-existent, and the table would more accurately look like this:

	Scenario A (X exists)	Scenario B (X never exists)
	(1) Presence of pain (Bad)	(3) Absence of pain (Zero value)
	(2) Presence of pleasure (Good)	(4) Absence of pleasure (Zero value)

Expressed this way, any semblance of asymmetry disappears. The absence of pain and the absence of pleasure each have zero value for the never-existent, making them perfectly symmetrical with each other. Among the never-existent, there is no one at all who benefits from an absence of pain or who is harmed by an absence of pleasure. As I have argued in other posts, life is the source of value.¹² Since the never-existent will never live, there is no value, positive or negative, in never existing. Although an absence of pain may be good for living people who suffer from it, it has no value at all for those who will never exist. They are not literally better-off for not experiencing pain, a position Benatar has said he will not argue against. The asymmetry Benatar has argued for is an illusion created by relying on a double standard, and because it uses a non-literal sense of bad in (3) while using literal senses of good and bad in the other quadrants, it cannot support the idea that never-existing had an advantage over existing without committing the fallacy of equivocation. So, Benatar’s asymmetry is false, and it does not validly support his anti-natalist conclusions.

1. Better Never to Have Been
2. Better Not to Have Been Born, p.4
3. ibid, p.31
4. ibid, p. 14
5. Critical Study
   David Benatar. Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence
6. Better Never To Have Been, pp. 38-39
7. ibid, p. 41
8. ibid, p. 4
9. ibid, p. 39
10. ibid, p. 39
11. ibid, p. 40
12. Morality or Meaning Without God?
    The Moral Landscape’s Definition of Good
    If you don’t believe in God, why live?