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Quotes from Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence — David Benatar

born 1966 South Africa

← All quotes by David Benatar

3 quotes

On my view there is no net benefit to coming into existence and thus coming into existence is never worth its costs.

Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (2006)

It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.

Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (2006)

The argument that coming into existence is always a harm can be summarized as follows: Both good and bad things happen only to those who exist. However, there is a crucial asymmetry between the good and the bad things. 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.

Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (2006)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: David Benatar (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.