Benatar's Asymmetry
David Benatar (b.1966)
[quote=Wikipedia]David Benatar argues there is crucial asymmetry between the good and the bad things, such as pleasure and pain, which means it would be better for humans not to have been born:
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[/quote]
Reviewing Benatar's 4 propositions, we find 1 and 2 are incontrovertible truths. However there seems to be a problem with propositions 3 and 4.
Propositions 3 and 4 can be rephrased with the meaning unchanged as follows:
3a. The absence of pain is good even if nonexistence [it doesn't matter whether a living thing exists or not, absence of pain is good]
4a. The absence of pleasure is not bad unless existence [only if a living thing exists is the absence of pleasure a bad thing]
The following improvised table sums up Benatar's claims (3 & 4)
.........................................Existence..................Nonexistence
5. Absence of pleasure.......Bad.............................Not bad
6. Absence of pain..............Good...........................Good
In 5 [Absence of pleasure], existence matters because when there exists a living thing, the absence of pleasure is bad and where a living thing doesn't exist, the absence of pleasure is not bad.
In 6 [Absence of pain], existence doesn't matter because whether you exist or not, the absence of pain is good.
Basically then proposition 3 and 4 (both necessary for Benatar to make his case for antinatalism) entails that (from 5 and 6 above):
Existence matters AND Existence doesn't matter : Contradiction!
ADDENDUM: Benatar, when he judges that absence of pain is good [even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone], he regards unborn people's potential to feel pain. Isn't that why it's better not to exist for existence brings with it painful experiences.
However, when Benatar concludes that the absence of pleasure is not bad [unless there is someone for whom this absence is a deprivation], he completely disregards unborn people's potential to feel pleasure.
If we must be fair, and we must, both the potential to feel pain AND the potential to feel pleasure of unborn people must be given equal weightage. This fits in quite well with my initial claim that Benatar shifts from the position that existence doesn't matter to the position that existence matters between propositions 3 and 4.
That said, I wonder if there's a good reason why Benatar would think this way - switching his views on the potential of the unborn to feel from relevant to irrelevant depending on whether what is being felt is pain or pleasure respectively.
Comments...
[quote=Wikipedia]David Benatar argues there is crucial asymmetry between the good and the bad things, such as pleasure and pain, which means it would be better for humans not to have been born:
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[/quote]
Reviewing Benatar's 4 propositions, we find 1 and 2 are incontrovertible truths. However there seems to be a problem with propositions 3 and 4.
Propositions 3 and 4 can be rephrased with the meaning unchanged as follows:
3a. The absence of pain is good even if nonexistence [it doesn't matter whether a living thing exists or not, absence of pain is good]
4a. The absence of pleasure is not bad unless existence [only if a living thing exists is the absence of pleasure a bad thing]
The following improvised table sums up Benatar's claims (3 & 4)
.........................................Existence..................Nonexistence
5. Absence of pleasure.......Bad.............................Not bad
6. Absence of pain..............Good...........................Good
In 5 [Absence of pleasure], existence matters because when there exists a living thing, the absence of pleasure is bad and where a living thing doesn't exist, the absence of pleasure is not bad.
In 6 [Absence of pain], existence doesn't matter because whether you exist or not, the absence of pain is good.
Basically then proposition 3 and 4 (both necessary for Benatar to make his case for antinatalism) entails that (from 5 and 6 above):
Existence matters AND Existence doesn't matter : Contradiction!
ADDENDUM: Benatar, when he judges that absence of pain is good [even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone], he regards unborn people's potential to feel pain. Isn't that why it's better not to exist for existence brings with it painful experiences.
However, when Benatar concludes that the absence of pleasure is not bad [unless there is someone for whom this absence is a deprivation], he completely disregards unborn people's potential to feel pleasure.
If we must be fair, and we must, both the potential to feel pain AND the potential to feel pleasure of unborn people must be given equal weightage. This fits in quite well with my initial claim that Benatar shifts from the position that existence doesn't matter to the position that existence matters between propositions 3 and 4.
That said, I wonder if there's a good reason why Benatar would think this way - switching his views on the potential of the unborn to feel from relevant to irrelevant depending on whether what is being felt is pain or pleasure respectively.
Comments...
Comments (34)
I do not like pain, and not liking pain keeps me safe. Therefore pain is good.
Of course, of course. I guess Benatar was referring to gratuitious pain - the kind that ain't necessary to keep us safe.
Quoting zookeeper
Benatar's asymmetry, as far as I can tell is that the absence of pleasure is not bad but not bad. There is a contradiction there, no?
I don't think it can be. Humans don't experience absence and they don't experience non-existence.
Quoting TheMadFool
It's quite hard to articulate the nonsensicality. "It's a good thing unicorns don't exist, because it results in them feeling no pain. If they existed, they might feel pain." As soon as you say 'good thing' it becomes clear that non-existence of anything cannot be a good thing in its own right. And indeed good and bad are relational, so that x is good for y. Creation is good for God, or logic is good for philosophy, or an axe is good for chopping wood, sugar is bad for the teeth, smoking is bad for the lungs pain is bad for the peace of mind.
Non-existence is good for unicorns? And everything? Nothingness is good for nothing! Benatar is doing one of those proofs that divide by zero.
0 * 0 = 0
0 * 1 = 0
therefore, 0 = 1
Firstly, I somehow sympathize with Benatar's view absence of pain being good whether or not a living thing capable of experiencing pain exists or not. There's another thread showing up in the discussion list: why do suicidal thoughts arise? started by @Shawn. The fact that people commit suicide is clear proof that people, subject to severe pain, will opt for nonexistence.
Secondly, Benatar's "good" must be viewed vis-a-vis suicide. The person who takes his own life chooses to do so because nonexistence is a better ("good") option for him compared to, say, being subject to a long drawn out battle with a painful life-threatening illness. It follows then that people's intuitions on the matter are in line with Benatar's views.
Fair enough, experience was a poor choice of word. Substitute "experience" with "intuit", "view", "feel about" or something along those lines.
Yes, I think one should take the suicide seriously. But I think the non-suicide such as thou and I should also be taken seriously, and clearly our intuitions are different. But you confirm my point, that good and bad are relational. The suicide considers his existence bad-for-him, (and probably bad-for-others). I don't.
Isn't visual sense data pain, amongst other sense data?
I'm not a mascochist but I do like pain, especially small pain.
I'm both respectful of it, and joyus of what I'm arguing is, greater pleasure, that comes after pain staking.
Would humans have evovled without taking so and so amount of pain?
I think the premise 'Pain is bad', is wrong. Think how lowly pleasure seems in this context.
It seems you've wrote the opposite context, which is fine.
I agree with both I just think your doctrine is false.
I agree universe life is more a hell, but controversial because pain staking has resulted in great heavenly product.
This hell is presumably because of the science that species can perform by using the increased pain sense and freedom.
Hell in this context is not suffering, but like a small suffering; a Matrix-film like socket at the back of the head, outcasted life. Or a job away from home.
Yes, agreed. The question is what's the difference between a suicidal person and us? The easy answer is the degree of pain - the suicidal chap's pain is far far greater than ours. Doesn't this mean that the severity/degree of pain must be accounted for by antinatalists? Yes, of course.
Benatar's 4 propositions makes no mention of severity of pain and he seems to be using the words "pleasure" and "pain" as if they're of equal intensity which then leads him to antinatalism. Do you suppose that including a severity scale can refute Benatar's, what seems to me, almost perfect antinatalist argument?
Let's check it out.
1. Presence of pleasure is good [people's views on pleasure don't usually include a ceiling on the intensity of pleasure - infinite pleasure and more is what people want]
2. Presence of pain is bad [but a bearable amount of pain is acceptable]
3. Absence of pain is good even if that good isn't enjoyed by anyone. This claim won't sit well with people. Take the extreme case of a person determined to kill himself for whatever reason Even for such a person suicide is the last option. This fact suffices to show that if options are available, people will choose existence over nonexistence.
4. Absence of pleasure is not bad unless there's somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation. This assumes that the nonexistent can't be deprived. How is it that when presence of pleasure is good (1), and being existent makes it possible to experience this pleasure, that nonexistent doesn't count as a deprivation? A simple thought experiment: Imagine you're a wealthy man fully capable of giving your child the best life has to offer and you decide not to have children. Aren't you taking away a wonderful opportunity from your unborn children? Basically, one doesn't have to be actually alive to be deprived of pleasure. An unborn child with the possibility of pleasure in his life must necessarily count among those deprived of pleasure.
I mentioned a contradiction in my OP and I restate it here in a slightly different way but the essence of my argument remains the same.
Begin with nonexistence, the antinatalist's preferred state.
8.Benatar would say the nonexistent state, because pain is absent, is good. So far, so good.
Coming to pleasure, Benatar would say,
9. the nonexistent state can't be deprived of pleasure and so the nonexistent state is not bad.
Where is the problem then with Benatar's argument?
Well, in 8 the absence of pain is good only if Benatar is concerned about unborn, potential persons and their capacity to feel pain.
The absence of pleasure is not bad only if Benatar ignores and isn't concerned about unborn, potential persons and their capacity to feel pleasure.
Basically, he's treating unborn, potential persons differently in 3 and 4.
Good for no one = no good at all.
Quoting TheMadFool
Yes. but he thinks it is justified; we don't. But Let's try and give devil his due here.
Imagine a really bad life, someone has thrown acid in your face and you are blind scarred and ugly in terrible pain and needing many operations unable to work and having to beg homeless on the street. Add gore to taste. Nothing can justify that, nothing can make that suffering worthwhile. But my vaguely pleasant unremarkable life of parenthood and comfort has brought into existence not only my children, but potentially untold generations, one or more of whom will quite likely have just such a life of unmitigated suffering. So this is the sense in which I think in those untold generations the pleasant lives of the many cannot compensate for the one miserable life. This is the radical choice you are offered, to be responsible for many ordinary pleasant lives and some miserable ones, or no lives at all. No one is deprived by you not having children, but some will suffer if you do. That is the asymmetry.
So to say yes to life, to the extent of procreation, is to say yes to a life you would expect to say no to if you had to actually live it. The vale of tears, they call this world; the same world that God saw was good. Religion is very ambivalent about procreation.
Well spoken. Hit the bullseye.
It seems we dislike pain much more than we like pleasure. So here's Ms.Pain and Ms. Pleasure. No one would be willing to spend just 5 minutes with Ms. Pain even if that meant an entire day spent in the company of Ms. Pleasure. This implies we'd choose nonexistence over existence given that we can get rid of the pain permanently notwithstanding the accompanying loss of pleasure that comes with nonexistence. Ironically, ceteris paribus, death (nonexistence) is the most painful event we face in life, both for ourselves and our loved ones. It's like being in love with your enemy. :chin:
By the way, "unenlightened", Buddhism with its concept of nirvana (enlightenment) as an escape from the pain-ridden cycle of death and rebirth in samsara seems to be right up Benatar's alley.
What you don't want, may just be what you need.
No simulation starts out full-fledged. We must discover how to improve it.
Part of this life is doing what we don't want, and that is the sacrifice we are to make('in this hell').
I don't want people to talk down to me, I want to be in charge, but I adapted to that condition.
I've become better through it.
TheMadFool, I believe we went over the reason for this difference, based on the thought experiment of the Martians. This is all based on intuitions regarding the how we think about the absence of pain vs. the absence of pleasure. This comes from what he thinks is a difference in how these are weighted. The absence of pain is much more of an intrinsic good than the absence of pleasure is an intrinsic bad, and he thinks our intuitions and psychology support this asymmetry between the two intuitions. Again, I explained here his thought experiment:
Quoting schopenhauer1
https://wmpeople.wm.edu/asset/index/cvance/benatar
@TheMadFool In the very first paragraph, he pretty much addresses your objection.
:up: :ok:
Food for thought: Pain means injury (mental and/or physical) and injury means death. All pain is unpleasant, ergo undesirable, for the simple reason that all pain involves a death in some sphere of existence. From basic bodily health assailed by trauma or disease to social relationships brought to breaking point by people or circumstances, all pain therein present, are an existential threat. Ironic then that the "solution" proposed by the likes of Benatar is to beat death at its own game and choose nonexistence. The crucial point here being that in our heart of hearts we know our biggest pain in the neck is nonexistence. To then suggest the solution to our pain (death/nonexistence) is exactly that which pains us blows my mind.
:ok: :up:
In a good or bad way :chin:? Anyways, Yes, nonexistence, at least as it refers to the next generation of progeny, is the best way to go. You don't need to overcome anything, if you don't need to overcome anything in the first place. Why put people in a deficit and see how well they fare? Why put people in absurdly repetitive needs of survival, maintenance, and entertainment-seeking, when you don't need to in the first place? Of course, he is less concerned with the issues I raise here of absurdity, and existential deficits. He seems to focus on suffering, although the extent of what suffering means can extend to the absurdities and existential deficits I mentioned.
I think pleasure is an outlet for those with suicidal idealizations. In small doses please.
Are you OK, unenlightened-san?
I am an antinatalist but I am always unconvinced by Benatars approach.
He seems to be telling everyone their lives are terrible.
He also seems to be ruling out an afterlife and to be coming from a reductive materialist atheist position.
Yes, unenlightened, only good things are directed your way from me.
Quoting unenlightened
I'm sorry and pleased.
In an odd way.
Firstly I'm not referring to existentialism or absurdism by "existential threat". I simply mean that pain is ultimately about death - pain is death's envoy and that's what makes it so unpleasant, so undesirable (to life) - and if one is in pain, either you're experiencing death itself or death is near. So, to fear/dislike pain is to fear/dislike death itself.
Secondly, given the above is true, imagine a person P who has an immense fears/dislike of pain, and by extension he greatly fears/dislikes death. If P were to seek advice for his problem from an antinatalist [with special powers over time] the antinatalist would say that he (the antinatalist) could travel back in time and prevent the P's parents from ever meeting and having P and since there would be no P to begin with, P would never experiene fear/dislike of pain and death. This course of action defines the antinatalists' agenda.
However, P is being offered a raw deal by the antinatalist, no? P fears/dislikes pain because pain is associated with death i.e. P's fear/dislike of pain is just a projection of his fear/dislike of death/nonexistence. In the setting of this realization, the antinatalist's offer to prevent P from existing i.e. making P nonexistent amounts to offering death to P and we know that's exactly what P fears/dislikes. :chin:
Quoting Shawn
I believe there was a philosopher, I forget his name, who claimed that the biggest problem in philosophy is suicide in the sense that not enough people are contemplating it in the face of the meaninglessness of life. People who are suicidal seem to see no purpose in their continued existence.
Not gonna quote the whole thing, but he argues that "the pleasures of the existent, although good, are not a real advantage over non-existence, because the absence of pleasures is not bad" (to other readers, it's advised to read the source to get a clear picture of the argument. Duh). His justification for this is to consider that "[a person] S is prone to regular bouts of illness. Fortunately for him, he is also so constituted that he recovers quickly. H lacks the capacity for quick recovery, but he never gets sick." Of this example, Benatar states "S is not better off than H in any way". I've skipped over a little bit of the logic, so, again, see the source for the whole argument, but I find fault with his conclusion from the situation.
If I sum it up, S's recovery (a good) is not an advantage over H's lack of recovery, because it doesn't matter that H can't recover (it's "not bad"). I think this is easily flawed, because it ignores the potential dynamics that S's good recovery has as relief to his bad sickness, in contrast to only H's good lack of sickness. Similarly if we continue to the end of this section, Benatar finishes by saying, "There are benefits both to existing and non-existing. It is good that existers enjoy their pleasures. It is also
good that pains are avoided through non existence. However, that is only part of the picture. Because there is nothing bad about never coming into existence, but there is something bad about coming into existence, all thing considered non-existence is preferable."
This is just an assertion that he doesn't back up with anything. Why is it that any badness immediately makes the alternative preferable? Again, he doesn't seem to be entertaining the idea that the dynamics between the good and bad of existence makes it preferable, despite the lack of bad in non-existence.
I know you're not, but I am as part of a broader definition of suffering :grin:.
Quoting TheMadFool
Yeah but this is a scenario that is not the case of the never born. You can argue that once born, we fear death, and the idea of full annihilation might be something to fear. This wouldn't be the case for a situation where someone who could have been born from a parent was not (colloquially referred to for the sake of easy reference "non-existent people".)
Quoting TheMadFool
Albert Camus said that in the Myth of Sisyphus in his first line: “There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that” (MS, 3).
It is simply an analogy to illustrate his point.
The claim is that the presence of pain is bad and the presence of pleasure is good. To never get sick is good (similar to never feeling pain). To never have recovered from a sickness is not bad, if one never needed to be sick in the first place (similar to never feeling happiness, if one is not around to be deprived of happiness in the first place). He is illustrating how not getting sick is an absolute good (in his terms it seems to mean something like good, in any state of affairs). Recovering from sickness is only a relative good (it is only good in certain states of affairs where one needs to recover in the first place). This is akin to the difference between the absence of pain and the absence of happiness in respect to states of affairs where someone could have existed but does not actually exist. That's all that analogy was as far as I see. So the conclusion really comes from his original claim, not the analogy. The basic claim is that the absence of happiness doesn't really matter in the situation of no person existing. What does matter is the absence of pain. The joys of life, would only matter once born, and thus are not a consideration for the non-born, as his analogy illustrates, it's only instrumentally good.
My own analysis is to think of this in terms of deficits. One doesn't need to be in a state of lack, discomfort, pain or the like if one is not born. Once, one is born, one has to deal with overcoming a state of lack, pain, discomfort, etc. If life represents a constant state of lack to be overcome and deal with, and this indeed is a type of existential suffering- to put someone in this situation unnecessarily, would be a bad decision to impose, as it is causing harm to others, unnecessarily. To make someone sick so they can recover from the illness, would be analogously a bad or immoral thing to do. To get even MORE "meta" here, if we live in a world where to get inherent meaning we must cause deficits for others in order for them to feel "meaning" in some way, it may be that the world is not as good as we assume or project onto it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Perhaps instrumental good is better than absolute good? Perhaps there is another asymmetry, and that is an asymmetry between the good of experiencing pleasure and the good of not experiencing pain? And as such, the claim that non-existence is preferable because existence experiences badness and non-existence does not is unjustified?
Quoting schopenhauer1
You must be careful with your analogies. Most anyone would agree with you that such an infliction is bad, but consider another supposed example of inflicting harm for the greater good: childhood discipline. Of course it's the right thing to harm your child either indirectly by not giving them the treats they desire, or even by direct discipline (timeout, scolding, etc.). This indicates that there is a difference between your uncharitable example and mine, that difference being that in your example, you are giving them sickness just to alleviate them from the sickness you gave them. It's a reversal. In the case of childhood discipline, your aren't putting them in time out just to take them out, rather you are putting them there to, well, discipline, shape up their behavior so that they may lead better, ethical lives in the future.
This is the difference in perspective, and I think the unspoken assumption that anti-natalists have that life is suffering. To give birth is to give them the illness of life, only to reverse that illness as best we can. But I don't think life is inherently suffering. Yes, life is fundamentally about avoiding pain, but that doesn't mean life is pain.
Perhaps we can argue on whether or not life is fundamentally painful. I know you have arguments for that and you've already expressed some. In addition, I have two questions for you to narrow the scope of the conversation so that we can maybe communicate more effectively:
I'm just surprised to discover that antinatalism grows out of our dislike for pain and recommends nonexistence as a remedy when the fact of the matter is we dislike pain precisely because we fear nonexistence. It's like woman who dislikes fastfood because it makes her fat being told to become so fat, as fat as possible, that fastfood wouldn't maker her any fatter. Shouldn't she be cutting down on her fastfood and working on her weight instead? :chin:
But, not to fixate on it surely?
Can one do otherwise when faced with the truth of meaninglessness? Existential nihilism is the stuff of horror stories - like a malicious spirit it'll haunt our thoughts until our deaths. Quite odd that the very reason for our angst - death/nonexistence - will also serve to liberate us from that angst.
Don't die, then. Just philosophize. I would miss ya.
You can argue the child is not a full adult, and is obligatory once born to enact this. Once, born harm may be justified in non-adults, but the fact the deficit is created in the first place would then itself not be justified.
Quoting QuixoticAgnostic
It really works either way as to whether you believe in necessary forms of suffering (it is unavoidable), or contingent (it is practically unavoidable through circumstances of situation, cause and effect).
Quoting QuixoticAgnostic
I liken it to kidnapping someone in order for them to play a game you think they would mostly like. You smile as they play the game and start identifying with its obstacles and challenges to overcome. Is that justified? It can also be a like a slave who identifies with their situation even though they are being exploited. Is their own evaluation correct, just because its their own evaluation? I don't think so in both cases. Creating deficits so people can overcome them seems at best, a misjudgment.
So in this actual world, no I don't think it is the case that good outweighs the good of non-existent pain. But you know what? The collateral damage if I'm wrong is zilch, nothing, no one gets harmed. The collateral damage to your scenario is much more- someone definitely will get harmed. I do think there is an odd paternalistic vibe to these optimistic philosophies. Somehow the structures of existence are inherently "good" for someone to experience. But on examination, this really makes no sense for someone who never existed. No one needs to experience happiness prior to birth. It is only after birth that happiness becomes something of a vague goal, and certainly good experiences are sought out concretely.
Certainly we do not live in a utopia, but I guess if that was the reality, than I would be fine with procreation. I don't think this would even be a discussion, if that were the case though. However, that is not the current situation.
:smile: I'll try
If pain is good, then removing pain would be bad, right? Isn’t what is actually good the fact that we seek to alleviate pain? That act is what keeps us alive, not pain.