Disclaimer:
In spite that the following six-part review of David Benatar’s Better Never To Have Been, is quite critical, that is by all means not in conflict with my deep respect and acknowledgment of the priceless contribution of his work, as well as of his courage, originality, patience and persistence, which I find admirable and inspiring.

The book Better Never To Have Been by the philosopher David Benatar, published in 2006, is considered to be the most important antinatalist book so far. It is definitely not the first book that seriously discusses the ethics of procreation, but it is probably, so far, the most comprehensive attempt to constitute an antinatalist theory. Therefore the book, the theory, and its critiques, deserve a thorough review in an antinatalist blog such as this, and it also serves as a good starting point for it.

Each chapter of the book requires a distinct attention so I’ll address each one in a different post, starting with the introduction, or more accurately with the explanation he makes in the introduction, for why he chose to focus on humans.

But before that, a very brief explanation of the central idea of his book is necessary:

“The central idea of this book is that coming into existence is always a serious harm. That idea will be defended at length, but the basic insight is quite simple: Although the good things in one’s life make it go better than it otherwise would have gone, one could not have been deprived by their absence if one had not existed. Those who never exist cannot be deprived. However, by coming into existence one does suffer quite serious harms that could not have befallen one had one not come into existence.” (p.1)

That is basically and briefly how Benatar came to the conclusion that it is better never to have been. But since this case is the topic of the next chapter I’ll elaborate about it in the next post.
This post deals with Benatar’s decision to focus his argument on humans, and here is his explanation why:

“Although I think that coming into existence harms all sentient beings and I shall sometimes speak about all such beings, my focus will be on humans. There are a few reasons for this focus, other than the sheer convenience of it. The first is that people find the conclusion hardest to accept when it applies to themselves. The focus on humans, rather than on all sentient life, reinforces its application to humans. A second reason is that, with one exception, the argument has most practical significance when applied to humans because we can act on it by desisting from producing children. The exception is the case of human breeding of animals, from which we could also desist. A third reason for focusing on humans is that those humans who do not desist from producing children cause suffering to those about whom they tend to care most—their own children. This may make the issues more vivid for them than they otherwise would be.” (p.3)

I understand that when focusing on humans, Benatar wishes to directly tackle antinatalism’s greatest challenge which is humans’ procreation. But by doing so he actually confirms humans’ false perception that their lives are truly the most worthy lives. The logic of the argument that if humans are convinced that even their “supreme” lives are better off not starting, then this is certainly the case with other sentient creatures, works only if you insist to focus just on the expected wellbeing of the one who wasn’t born yet. This is ethically false. Ethics is supposed to be about how one must treat others, not what’s best for one. The flaw with focusing on the one who wasn’t born yet, becomes especially clear when the focus of the focus on the one who wasn’t born yet, is on humans. It is wrong and speciesist since it omits all the victims of humans, and focuses on the welfare of the most harmful species ever, which given its tremendous harmfulness, its opinion on the matter should actually be the last one to consider. It is the victims who should have primacy, but when the focus is on humans, most of them don’t even have a say. When humans are at the center of the issue, most of the victims are totally omitted. And that doesn’t reinforce antinatalism, but significantly weakens it.

The logic behind Benatar’s first reason for focusing on humans is that, since people find antinatalism hardest to accept when it applies to themselves, if they would accept the conclusion that even if their lives, which they think are superior to any other animal life, are better off not starting, than obviously the same conclusion must be applied to other sentient creatures. The idea is that if the creatures who are sure that their lives are the most worthy, understand that they aren’t actually worthy, then clearly the lives of all the others aren’t worthy as well. But humans are not the creatures whose lives are most worthy but exactly the opposite since they are by far the creatures who are responsible for most of the suffering in the world. Humans are the ones who are responsible for the fact that trillions of sentient creatures’ lives are a continuous misery. Ethically, the procreation of humans is not the hardest nut to crack but the easiest. If Benatar wants to reinforce antinatalism on the basis of the claim that even the creatures whom their lives are the most worthy – are actually not worthy, he should have picked the species with the least harmful impact on others, a species who feeds on plants only, is satisfied with small habitat and little resources, unaggressive, non-hierarchical and etc. It is not easy to find such an example, but that would be the hardest nut to crack. With humans, it is the most clear and obvious conclusion. To think otherwise is to totally ignore the unavoidable and enormous harms to others, harms which are inherent in the creation of each new human. If a procreation convention of all the species on earth was held, undoubtedly it would be voted unanimously (except for humans of course) that humans must never procreate. Ever.

Already in the first reason for why he focuses on people lays the biggest problem with the common antinatalist arguments and with this book specifically. The focus on people is the outstanding example of the omission of the harms to others when discussing the ethics of procreation, as people’s harms to others are incomparably greater than any other animal on earth. So when considering the ethics of procreation with humans in focus, it is especially significant to consider the harms to others.
It’s clear to me that Benatar’s ethical framework is whether coming into existence is a benefit or a harm for a non-existent person. But if this is the only question in case then this ethical framework is unethical. An ethical decision must consider all the affected individuals of that decision, not just one. Placing the expected wellbeing of the unborn in focus when considering the ethics of procreation might be very intuitive, but it is also extremely partial. There is a whole world that the person in focus would be born into. A whole world of sentient creatures who would be affected by the existence of that person. When considering all the expected affected individuals by the procreation of a human – the most harmful creature ever on this planet – then the answer to the question whether creating a new human is always a harm is most definitely YES.

Regarding the second reason for why he chose to focus on humans, although it is true that “the argument has most practical significance when applied to humans”, that doesn’t mean that human suffering should be the motive behind it. In fact it serves as a much weaker one, given that currently almost each and every human, regardless of how horrible their lives are, believes (absolutely falsely but still) that their lives are most definitely worth starting. When humans’ suffering is the criterion, it is not surprising that one of the most common counterarguments to Benatar’s conclusion is that he is wrong about how horrible humans’ lives are, evidently most are happy that they were born. This is not really a valid counterargument to Benatar’s argument as I’ll try to explain in the post about the third chapter of the book, but it does reveal that Benatar’s argument is rather weak and invites this expected reply.
But if the focus is on every sentient creature, then given that what makes the lives of trillions of them extremely and undoubtedly horrible is the existence of humans, and given that indeed the argument has most practical significance when applied to humans, humans mustn’t procreate.
That is a very strong case at least against human reproduction. If the suffering humans inflict on others is the motive behind antinatalism, arguing that humans’ lives are not as bad as Benatar argues, is irrelevant. Humans mustn’t procreate even if they could theoretically insure that the lives of their children would be only happiness and bliss, because of all the harms they would inflict on others.

Benatar’s third reason to focus on people makes much sense, but only on the face of it. Practically people don’t care about the fate of their own children, and therefore keep making them with no good reason except their selfish desire to have them, and with no guarantee whatsoever that they will have good lives.
Benatar argues in the introduction that:

“Creating new people, by having babies, is so much a part of human life that it is rarely thought even to require a justification. Indeed, most people do not even think about whether they should or should not make a baby. They just make one. In other words, procreation is usually the consequence of sex rather than the result of a decision to bring people into existence.” (p.3)

I agree that creating new people is rarely thought to even require a justification, and that most people do not even think about whether they should or should not make a new person. But unfortunately I disagree that procreation is usually the consequence of sex rather than the result of a decision to create people. Though it is true in many cases, I think that usually, people do decide to create new people. And that makes them even worse than if they were doing it unintentionally or just as a “consequence of sex”. The fact that people are intentionally choosing to force new humans into existence, despite the harms they would have to endure, and despite all the suffering they would inflict on others, makes them even more careless and cruel.

Humans’ carelessness, even for their own children, and their cruelty in general, are of the strongest reasons why trying to convince people not to procreate is useless, and why we must find ways to stop humans from procreating regardless of their opinion about it. Just as they disregard the opinion of their children, and all of their children’s victims. That is not so to teach them a lesson of course, but because it is the only way to stop this never-ending crime.

References

David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)