THE BENETAR THEORY

David Benetar, professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town, has authored The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions and Better Never to Have Been: The Harm Of Coming Into Existence, based on anti-natalism. Considered the world’s most pessimistic philosopher, he believes that life is so bad and painful that humans should stop having children, for reasons of compassion. He stresses on four major plausible symmetries that state:

1. We have a moral obligation not to create unhappy people, and we have no moral obligation to create happy people. 2. It is strange to mention the interests of a potential child as a reason why we decide to create it, and it isn’t strange to mention the interests of a potential child as a reason to decide not to create it. 3. Someday we can regret that we created a man, whose existence was conditional on our decision as he can be unhappy. But we will never regret that we did not create him as a man will not be deprived of happiness because he will never exist. 4. Absence of pain is good even when there is not someone who is experiencing this good.