Better Never to Have Been

2006/10/12 by David Benatar · 1 voice · 10 citations
Social Sciences · Medicine · #Educational Leadership and Practices #Legal Cases and Commentary #Latin American and Latino Studies

paper · doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199296422.001.0001

Abstract

This book argues for a number of related, highly provocative views: (i) coming into existence is always a serious harm; (ii) procreation is always wrong; (iii) it is wrong not to abort foetuses at the earlier stages of gestation; and (iv) it would be better if, as a result of there being no new people, humanity became extinct. Although these conclusions are antagonistic to common and deeply held intuitions, the book argues that these intuitions are unreliable and thus cannot be used to refute it's grim-sounding conclusions.

Cited by

• Human Antinatalism and the Limits of Bipolar Pessimism
• Introduction and Validation of the Short Antinatalism Scale (S-ANS)
• The Paradox of Sentiocentric Antinatalism: The Obligation of Extinction or the Obligation of Survival?
• The End of Sentience
• The Morality of Having Children. Procreation as a Duty to Help Others
• Moral Uncertainty, Proportionality and Bargaining
• From Abstinence to Assistance: Antinatalism's Unexpected Endorsement of the Principle of Procreative Beneficence
• How To Solve Moral Conundrums with Computability Theory
• The Biointelligence Explosion
• Responses to catastrophic AGI risk: a survey

Discussions

• TW: Undergraduate Essay on Edgy Topic [lemmy, 7 points, 5 comments]

Related

• Human Antinatalism and the Limits of Bipolar Pessimism
• The Paradox of Sentiocentric Antinatalism: The Obligation of Extinction or the Obligation of Survival?
• The Morality of Having Children. Procreation as a Duty to Help Others
• The End of Sentience
• From Abstinence to Assistance: Antinatalism's Unexpected Endorsement of the Principle of Procreative Beneficence